Switching from teaching drama and English to teaching the Bible is ‘soul fulfilling’
By Wong Kin Ang
Every morning Pastor Elizabeth Lei leaves home at around 9 am to go to the Macau Assembly of God (MAOG) Church, where she is the head of children’s ministry. On her way, she usually drops by at a bakery by the corner near her home around Avenida Horta e Costa to get her take-away breakfast.
Arriving at the church, around 9.20 am, she quickly enjoys her breakfast while going through her daily schedule, before she has a devotional and then starts her work at 10 am.
These were not Lei’s routines five years ago, when she was at the end of her tenure as a drama and English-language teacher at the Sacred Heart Canossian College (Chinese Section), located between Avenida de Horta e Costa and the Mong-Ha Hill.
Born in Macau in 1983, Lei grew up with a younger brother, who she is very close with until today. There were only the two of them and their grandmother in the house, most of the time, when they were still little children as their parents had to be at work every day.
“As kids we liked to pretend to be parents. Most of the time, my brother would be the father and I would be the child. But sometimes, I got to be the mother and he became the child,” says the 40-year-old minister.
Interestingly, she still does it today – kind of – with her church members. Some of them would, indeed, see her as a spiritual mother, especially her Sunday School’s children, of course.
“One day, I was sharing about Jesus healing the blind and there was one little boy who was an orphan; he said to me ‘I want my mother’ as if he was asking for a different miracle, for God to give him a mother,” she recalls. “I would be a mother to all these children who need a mother. And I’m honoured to have been a spiritual mother or older sister to some people.”
Lei’s life journey as an adult began after she finished high school, also at Sacred Heart Canossian College (English Section), in 1999. She completed her Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Macau (UM) in 2005, after which she began to work at the Sacred Heart Canossian College (Chinese Section).
In 2013, she took a year break to do her Master of Drama and Theatre in Education degree at the University of Warwick in Coventry, the United Kingdom. She returned to Macau in 2014 and resumed her role at the Sacred Heart Canossian College.
She became a Christian during her time in Coventry. “Before I went to the UK, I was not a Christian but a friend of mine had taken me to a church one time. And I was already learning a little bit about Christian lifestyle. But it was in the UK that I found a church that eventually became my home church during my stay there,” She reminisces. “I could see the church from my hostel’s bedroom window.”
Lei was finally baptised in July 2014, just one month before coming back to Macau in August.
“After learning more about Jesus I decided to follow Him,” she says. “I truly believe that Jesus is the only saviour of life.”
In Macau, she joined MAOG in 2014 and she would continue to grow in her faith. She began to be involved in church activities and ministries.
“I was very excited the first time I got involved in a church drama, where I was asked to be the leading role of a dancer,” says Lei.
One day, when she was in the middle of her work at the Sacred Heart Canossian College, she felt a calling from God to transition to become a teacher of the Bible. After praying for one year, Lei finally packed her bags and left Macau again in 2018 – this time to join the TCA College, an Assemblies of God-affiliated bible seminary in Singapore.
While she enjoyed her three years in Singapore, the Covid-19 pandemic still affected her mood, when borders across the world were shut down in early 2020 – the Lion City state included.
“I planned to come home once a year but, suddenly, I couldn’t come back for two years,” she says. “I miss and was worried about my family in Macau. At one stage, I also felt being ‘truly alone’ as I was separated from my family and friends in Macau for quite a while.”
Lei was quick to add, “But I was focused on finishing my study so I could finally go back and serve in Macau.”
She returned home and resumed her activities at the MAOG in 2021 before becoming a full-time pastoral staff member in October 2022.
“I really enjoy working for God full time now. I do miss working with the teenage school students sometimes. But I wouldn’t change my decision to leave my teaching career,” says Lei.
Well, she does hope that more young people in Macau, including children and teenagers, will come to Jesus and, also, join the MAOG – so she can start teaching teenagers again, only, the Bible this time, instead of English language.
Teaching the Bible may not be a career but it’s a life and soul fulfilling calling and journey,” she adds. – GNM
Photos: Good News Macau/Pierre Roland Christy
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