28/01/2022
He is one of our own, graduate of Father School. Here's his story. He just opened a seafood congee stall at Pasir Ris Central Hawker Centre, level 2.
Source: Salt & Light
Raymond Tan, 32, was born to a young woman with so many relationships that his surname was changed three times.
He had also been sold to a Pasir Panjang vegetable seller when he was three months old, but was later taken back. His self-worth plummeted when he realised how unwanted he really was.
At age 10, his life of crime began. “From young, I felt that I had no worth. Money was the one thing that could give me worth,” he said.
At 12, he was arrested for stealing at Takashimaya. By 16, he was hanging out in the back streets of Geylang, where he and his friends conducted illegal gambling activities.
By the time he was 20, he had been in Boys’ Home and prison five times.
A judge told him: “Save your crocodile tears. You are not just an offender. You have a criminal mind.”
Even after he became a father, he continued to gamble excessively, losing everything he had.
"I went to buy milk powder and I looked in my wallet: $40. The milk powder was $69. I didn’t even have enough money to buy milk powder for my baby,” he recalls.
That was rock bottom. And that was when Raymond, remembering his own bleak childhood and not wishing the same upon his children, decided to pick himself up.
He decided to start a crab wonton noodle stall.
It was through this that he met food blogger Dr Leslie Tay of , who invited him to his church.
“Looking back, I really felt I deserved hell … until God showed me His love, His mercy, His grace. The day I received God’s forgiveness was when I truly understood what it meant when Jesus said in the Gospels that he who has been forgiven much, loves much.”
Raymond now volunteers at the Boys’ Home. Where once he was a resident delinquent, he is now their mentor. The boys see his tattoos and know immediately that this is a man who has walked in their shoes.