Early in March, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Cyndi Yong, the founder of Petaling Street Community Care (PSCC). Cyndi has a remarkable story of her own, including how she discovered the burden for her street ministry. This story was told in a previous article. Here, she shares about PSCC, including its beginnings, and her experience as well as what she has gained ministering to a marginalised community.
In The Beginning
When Cyndi first started PSCC, she did not have much. She took courage from the story of Elijah and the widow at Zarephath (1 Kings 17:7-16). In this account, Elijah was on the run from Jezebel. God had also punished the land with drought because of the wickedness of the king and his wife.
Elijah had no home to go to and during this period, he had no food as well but the Lord had directed him to this widow and He had also directed this widow to supply him with food. What the widow had was only a handful of flour and a little bit of olive oil, enough for the last meal for herself and her son. Yet she obeyed God in faith. In honor of her faith, the Lord miraculously blessed the jar of flour and jug of oil so that they will never run out.
Cyndi shared that when she started the street ministry, she had not even much to give in terms of food. Being made redundant in the tourism industry since January 2020 because of the pandemic, she had become jobless and after a few months, her resources had run low. Furthermore, being a single mum with a young girl, she was struggling to make ends meet.
What Cyndi managed to collect, she had to get from elsewhere. What she had, though, were a few friends and close ones who shared a burden and heart of compassion with her. ‘These few people who started with me, right in the beginning of initiating PSCC were my “handful of flour” and my “little bit of oil”. I did not begin the street ministry alone. The people who walked beside me helped me make the ministry possible,’ she shared.
In the early days, PSCC had its venue in a very small coffee shop in Madras Lane, a back lane in the vicinity of Chinatown. ‘I saw that the shop was not doing very well but that the owner of the business, an almost 70-year old man, had a charitable heart. I said to him, “Since your business is not doing that good, why don’t we open up to the less privileged?” and he agreed to open up his place. At the same time, this would help to bring some revenue for his coffee/tea which the marginalised and homeless consume and it would bring some life to one corner of the dead Chinatown atmosphere during the bleak time.
‘What the homeless are lacking is not so much food, but their self-dignity. So I told them that there was a small coffee shop in Madras Lane where they were welcomed. If they are not welcomed anywhere else, the kopitiam in Madras Lane welcomes you. Please come. On the first day, close to 40 of them arrived with the intention to check it out after receiving the announcement which had been made viral. At first, they thought that it was a hoax or a joke, but they found it’s all real. The welcome to dine in and have a proper meal on us is real. Mummy Cyndi with an always welcoming smile is real. The warm home environment is real.
‘It was always the case of “if you have the money you pay for your food, the shop would direct a servant to bring the food, and you eat elsewhere”. But now we are telling them to just come as they are, whether they are in their wounds or crutches, whether they are in their rags or if they smell bad and feel small, just come.’
With the help of a few Good Samaritans, Cyndi decorated the shop with fittings, and even a shower and let them have a shower as well. All this happened just a week after the small kopitiam was opened to the poor, elderly, jobless, and handicapped.
Cyndi shared when the homeless needed clothes, towels, and basic personal necessities, she would just tell people, and all these would come delivered to her! “I was so happy that we do not just touch the homeless, we move the community as well to do this together,” she reminisced joyously.
‘I always tell people I am just the face and voice of Petaling Street Community Care,’ Cyndi said to me. ‘Behind me, there are hands and feet doing the unseen work. From the very first day, I would say. Up to now there are still volunteers supporting me in the care work.”
Petaling Street Community Care had its beginning and it had begun well.
How One of Many Lives was Turned Around
One of the most powerful of the many stories Cyndi shared with me came from PSCC’s early days. When PSCC first started, they would switch on some praise and worship music daily. At that time, the doors of the kopitiam would be open until late at night because there were a lot of people, like the drug addicts, who would not want to appear in the daytime. Cyndi shared that when all the other shops were closed, she would see them pass by the little coffee shop in the back lane and she would invite them in for food and drink.
One night, 4 Indian homeless came, and Cyndi felt it in her heart to share the Gospel with them, but she did not have the language to do it. The Indians did not know English or Chinese and their grasp of Malay was very limited. So Cyndi played them some Tamil worship songs along with some sermons in the language. ‘They listened and they were listening and listening. And I still remember, one by one, each of them the tears were just flowing.
‘I am very touched because these are the people who just came out from prison. They have nowhere else to go. They are roaming the streets. Food is only a way to connect with them. One by one they told me their stories, showing me their photos of their families, the only possession they had to remember their families by, as most of them could no longer trace their loved ones. I offered to pray for them as other than some food and drinks, I had nothing to give them anymore. I said to them, can we pray together because I have nothing to offer you but my Jesus. And they replied, “Yes, I want your Jesus. If Jesus can change my life, I want your Jesus.”
‘So I prayed for them and that very night together with another Indian friend I called who could speak Tamil, we brought them to the side entrance of Madras Lane, and just with bottles of mineral water, all 4 of them knelt down with hands raised to heaven and we baptised them in the name of our Lord, as was instructed in the Bible; “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.(Matthew 28:19)”
About 6 months later, one very neatly-dressed gentleman was calling Cyndi from afar, “Amma, Amma“. At first, she thought that he was calling an Indian woman from behind her. ‘”No, it’s you,” he said.
‘He pulled down his mask but I still could not recognise him. And then he said to me, “Do you remember that middle of the night you baptised me in front of the arch here?” And now finally I could recognise him. It was Raj, one of the men I had fed, prayed for, and baptised that night.
‘Raj knelt down quickly and touched my feet with both his hands. It was the respect Indians give to their elders. He said “Mummy, today I want to repay your kindness. You had fed me previously and today I want to repay what you had done for me.” With that, he fed me food with both of his hands. I was truly touched.
‘Raj continued, “Just because you cared for me, mummy, I know there’s at least one person who is concerned for me. I decided to really turn on a new leaf and walk the right path. Jesus is the true living God!” Little did I know Raj had been looking for me many nights at the spot where they had first known each other but it had been to no avail so now he had decided to come in the morning.’
Cyndi shared that she also broke down in tears. Raj is just one of the many lives being touched and turned around by the community care. ‘Because of one act, we may not know that it’s by God’s power that a life is changed. It reminds me of God’s word; “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” You never know how that one act of kindness could change a person’s life.’
A Homely Community for the Marginalised
Whenever Cyndi brought food and drink or set up a place for the homeless to come and eat, she would leave it up to them how much food and drink they want to take. ‘They want to drink one cup, three cups, five cups, it’s up to them. But at the end of the day, they have to wash their own plates and cups. I say to them, “This is like your home, nobody serves after anyone else, and whatever you are going to eat, please finish it.”‘
By doing this, Cyndi instills a sense of responsibility and worth in them, to do things for themselves and not to waste. It also imparts dignity into the person’s lives when they discover they can do things for themselves and take responsibility for their choices and decisions.
Another important thing Mummy Cyndi instills in them is the spirit of giving. There’s a transparent box whereby each who comes will drop a coin or a small note. It’s to remind them that each of us have something to give in return and it’s also all about self-worth and dignity. Even if they do not have a single sen to their possession, Mummy Cyndi will provide them a coin to drop.
‘We make it a very homely environment. Why? Because the homeless, the drug addicts, the prostitutes, and all that, they do not have a home. So after a while, they just get used to me, and then they call me Mummy. Wherever I go, even up to now, they would just call me, “Mummy, Mummy.” Even if they had eaten already, they would say it’s ok. They just want to call me, “Mummy”. It’s very endearing,” Cyndi said heartwarmingly.
Whenever festivities draw near, Cyndi and her team would decorate Madras Lane with festive ornaments. Initially, after seeing them put up Christmas decorations for a while, the Madras Lane Kopitiam owner said to Cyndi, it was no use putting up all the decorations, that they would be gone in no time. For the past 50 years, he had not seen any reachable decorations past 2 days. They would always end up in the flea markets nearby, selling for RM1-2 each. Mummy Cyndi responded by saying, “Oh is it, you just wait and see!”
‘But you wouldn’t believe it, even on the last days to replace the Christmas decorations with Chinese New Year ones, every single Christmas tinsel and ornament were still there. Amazingly, every single piece were still hanging, none of them were gone and this is Petaling Street we are talking about! The old timers would tell the newcomers, “Eh, this place belongs to Mummy Cyndi ah, it belongs to all of us ok, don’t ever touch any of the things, not even a single ornament. If any of these things ever end up in the flea market, we will know who took them.”’
A community and a sense of belonging had already formed and they were now taking care of each other.
Heartwarming Moments Bring Forth International Media Coverage
Things are not always plain sailing for PSCC. The landlord of the shop lot where the kopitiam was located, evicted them out of the small coffee shop in Madras Lane, accusing PSCC of being a hotbed for the COVID virus and attracting what he called “many trash of society”.
‘The reason he claimed was that they were carriers of the virus but who has heard of COVID clusters among the homeless up to now?’ Cyndi stated. ‘It is understandable when there’s no basic respect for the homeless, that’s the reason why they have no dignity.’
Despite Cyndi’s protests that there were no COVID carriers in the community and that they had stronger immunity than most people because of the hardship that they had to go through, it was to no avail.
Eventually, the Chinese national daily Sin Chew got to hear the story of PSCC and featured it on their page 2 nationwide (they would later feature PSCC two more times). Despite now being homeless, PSCC was still continuously serving the homeless. Even Al-Jazeera and TV8 contacted Cyndi during last year’s Chinese New Year as well as during the nationwide lockdown to cover PSCC’s story and what they were doing. Mariam Mokhtar, the respected columnist even described Cyndi as the Angel of Mercy in a MalaysiaKini article, for her work in continuing to serve the homeless during the lockdown.
‘Regardless of race, gender, or nationality (as many foreign tourists who were stuck here not being able to return home were also down to their few dollars), whoever who said that they want food, we give them food because the Bible says in Proverbs 22:9: the generous will themselves be blessed for they share their food with the poor,’ Cyndi conveyed. ‘Because I am not the only one doing this, we are also thinking of those who have been working with me from day one. We moved a community to do all this.’
The Things You Do in Life Can Leave a Legacy
Just like the drought in Elijah’s days, the pandemic had affected countless lives. And just like it was with the widow, because Cyndi stepped out in obedience, she is now not lacking in food. Cyndi expressed that despite being a jobless single mother with a young daughter, having eye floaters, bronchitis, spinal issues, and constant hand numbness caused by work hazard during the tourism days, ‘If I were to look at my circumstances in life, I would be in the lowest rung. This is where I started thinking, as I said, are we going to let the change affect us or are we going to affect a change in this time of pandemic?’
Cyndi shared that throughout the whole COVID period, many people she knew had passed on because of the pandemic. Likewise, many of us had known at least someone who has died because of COVID. Many of these people were not careless; they stayed in their homes and hardly went out. ‘When I think about this, I said “My life and death are in the hands of God. I have seen so many who never left their house, and then they just went out once, and they got COVID and they died.”‘
About 20 years ago, in one year alone, Cyndi attended a total of 4 funerals. The deceased ranged from their early 20s to early 40s, and they died from different reasons, including suicide and illness. It made Cyndi ponder; ‘When it’s my time to leave, would the people who attend my funeral be there because they have to be there, perhaps they are related to me, or would the people at my funeral, they would say that, “Because of what Cyndi said to me before, it changed my life. Because of what Cyndi did for me, my life turned around. Because she did that one little thing for me that nobody else was willing to do, my whole family’s life is changed?”’
Cyndi expressed that in her hardship when she had to raise her own white flag, even before countless others in the nation started to raise theirs, there were people who were there for her, for her daughter. ‘I wouldn’t be here if those people didn’t show me compassion. I and my daughter would not be here serving the homeless and destitute if those people didn’t hold my hands and help me carry on. That’s why I always encourage Latreia to serve in the streets with me so that she can practise compassion from a young age. I believe no matter how rich and successful a person may be, it’s of no real value without compassion.’
‘It’s because of those people who had helped me carry on, that I am here today, and paying forward to those who have less than us. And I don’t want any of them to pay me back. If they just raise their hands and call me ‘mummy’, I will be very happy because they know we are there for them. For this, I thank God and give all glory to Him.’
NOTE: 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.
All photos kindly contributed by Cyndi Yong.
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