“God knows me well,” says Kwan Poh San, 79. She saw that her identity as a Cantonese- speaking Chinese woman who was born in Japanese-occupied Singapore to the secondary wife of a businessman, and the circumstances in which she grew up, were all part of God’s plan for her.

As a schoolgirl, she juggled household chores with schoolwork, netball practice and tutoring other students to earn money for her school expenses after her father’s business closed down. All this was on top of her responsibilities as president of the youth fellowship at Fairfield Methodist Church, where she still worships today. She would not have known then that God was preparing her to be self-sufficient and disciplined for a calling in a faraway location years later. Eventually, she would be instrumental in making God’s Word accessible to a group of people more than 4,000 km away from Singapore.

Preparation for the mission field

“For many years, I had been interested in missionaries and missions. I had also been interested in the life and cultures of people of other countries,”¹ says Poh San. She responded to the call from God and left her teaching job at Silat Primary School to prepare for full-time service. “I’m just an ordinary person called by the Lord.” (When asked if this writer should address her as “Ms Kwan” or by name, she said, “I am plain Poh San.”)

“He has gifted me with language skills and I use them for his glory for whatever purposes he wants me to fulfil,” she says. These language skills that she refers to include the ability to speak English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew and Malay. Later at Bible college, she learnt Greek and Hebrew.

In 1973, Poh San enrolled at Singapore Bible College. A few years later, she went to Sydney to attend a linguistics course conducted by Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), which would prepare her for her work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. This was the first of many steps taken that would eventually culminate in the translation of the New Testament into the Mauwake language that is used by one of the people groups in Papua New Guinea. The translation effort took 18 years. In all, Poh San spent 24 years in Papua New Guinea. She chronicles this journey that God led her on in her book, Called by Grace, Led by Grace.

For safety reasons, single female missionaries had to find a teammate before the missions organisation would send them to a village in Papua New Guinea to begin their work. Poh San told God, “If you want me to go, give me a partner.”

God answered her prayer in the form of Liisa Jarvinen from Finland. “I had to adapt to Western culture,” says Poh San of her partnership with Liisa, in which Liisa, too, had to adjust to Poh San’s culture and habits. This was in addition to adjusting to the culture in the village in Papua New Guinea that they were living in. Inevitably, there would be differences of opinion.

Poh San recalls, “We struggled together and, as Liisa would laugh and say, ‘Sometimes we both want to be the leader and other times we both don’t want to lead.’”

She adds, “Sometimes, we hurt each other unknowingly. I tried to defuse tension by using humour or introducing a different point of view. Similarly, Liisa helped to defuse my anger by helping me see things with a different perspective. I am really thankful for the partnership all these years.” They worked together in the field for 24 years and shared many an adventure. Not long after Poh San left Papua New Guinea in 2001, Liisa returned to Finland where she met someone whom she would marry and return to Papua New Guinea with to serve.

“How the Lord has provided for each of us,” ² reflects Poh San. The two remain firm friends.

Adapting to a new culture

One of Poh San’s colleagues called her a cultural chameleon,³ or someone who could adjust to any culture she found herself in. This was useful as she had to adjust not just to village culture in Papua New Guinea but also to the cultures of the Western missionaries with whom she worked. Despite this ability to adapt, there were times when Poh San felt alone. “It was aloneness, not loneliness,” she clarifies. “I felt alone in that there was no one around who could understand my inner self.” She responded by explaining her perspectives to her European and American colleagues to aid them in understanding her Asian culture and way of life. “As I try to understand others, I want them to try to understand me.” Poh San explains, “I am an observer of people and cultures, but my identity is still strong. If your identity is not strong, you get confused and lose a bit of yourself. If you are strong, I can accept you, but you need to accept me. I expect us to be different but at the same time, we can do God’s work together.”

Nonetheless, there were times when loneliness struck. “Liisa noticed that whenever I was homesick, I would go to my room and sing to myself,” shares Poh San. “I love Chinese songs from the 50s and 60s. Singing them reminds me that in the midst of these English-speaking Americans, Australians and Europeans, and Papua New Guineans, I am Chinese and I have my own culture.”

Getting used to life in a rural setting was not a huge obstacle for Poh San. On the contrary, living in a village in Papua New Guinea reminded her of the times when she was younger, when she would visit her aunt in a kampong in Pek San Theng (Bishan today).⁴ There, the city-bred girl would immerse herself in village life, with the scents and sounds of the pigs, chickens and ducks, where she would be awakened by crowing roosters.

“I love the smell of earth and pigs,” she says. “It is not pleasant but it is the smell of real life. City life is comfortable but rural life allows you to be close to the earth. That is life.” As such, there was little culture shock for Poh San when it came to adapting to the physical aspects of village life in Papua New Guinea. In fact, she likened the rural aspect of her mission field to the “vacations” she used to enjoy in her youth in Pek San Theng.

Dealing with danger

Poh San and Liisa were adopted by the villagers in the locale that they were posted to and enjoyed their protection. Away from the village, the women had to take extra precautions for safety. Poh San found herself in a particularly hairy situation on one memorable occasion. She had to travel to Ukarumpa, which is the operations base for SIL in Papua New Guinea. To get there, she had to leave the village and stay overnight at a nearby town from which she would catch a morning flight to her destination.

Due to a combination of factors, Poh San ended up staying alone in a part of town where unsavoury characters would roam the streets at night with the intent to commit crime. Although Poh San’s lodging was guarded by two Rottweilers, the troublemakers were known to feed the guard dogs so that they could break into buildings to rob and assault the inhabitants. Before bedtime, she made the sign of the cross at every door and window at the front of the house. That night, she slept well. Whenever she awoke, she would hear the Rottweilers growling or snoring and she would fall back asleep.

“That was the only time I experienced fear,” says Poh San. “I was worried but I trusted God to take care of me.” She elaborates, “Poverty drives the people to crime. It is not hostility against us. We just have to take precautions.”

Today, Poh San does translation consulting in an Asian country and applies her skills to teaching other translators. Her passion for serving God and for bringing God’s Word to his people remains strong.

“I wept when I said goodbye that Sunday morning when I left Papua New Guinea (at the end of my posting),” Poh San recalls. “I had spent 24 years in that country. Not every moment was a good moment, but I had so many friends.”

She is thankful for the many people God brought into her life, whether as working partners, supporters in prayer and practical matters, or as those who taught or were taught by her. Poh San says in her book, “I praise God for them. And I praise God for himself. He is the Almighty God; he made it all come to pass.”⁵

¹ Poh San Kwan, Called by Grace, Led by Grace (Singapore: Kwan Poh San, 2023), 9.

² ibid., 67.

³ ibid., 41.

⁴ ibid., 7.

⁵ ibid., 130.