Book Description

To Jurong with Love analyses a coherent story of young Singaporeans, Catholics and others, from 1960 to 2000, around a remarkable Workers Centre at Jurong, an industrial estate in Singapore. The Review of Life, the method of formation used by the Young Christian Workers Movement inspired hundreds of young men and women to take their painstaking part in building the new society. I doubt there are many comparable pastoral analyses on this scale of church youth leadership in modern society. This record is rare in the way it pursues young people’s own initiatives and perspectives. While numerous groups of young workers form the core of this story, the players include student groups and specialised chaplains. The approval of the island’s archbishops was constant. How the aims of several generations of youth modulated with shifts of the economy, what succeeded and what failed, what depth was achieved, all make To Jurong with Love a page-turner. It all constitutes an inspiring work-book for those seriously committed to young people becoming active players in church and society. This account shows that ‘fidelity’ is no longer a simple thing if it ever was, but requires endless study of interplaying faith and fact as church and society, workers, races, genders, social and movements. This book will command the respect of anyone even tempted to underestimate youth as agents of our complex new global order. Daily life as a vocation beyond church shines in these 300 pages. Like some recent Acts of the Apostles, To Jurong with Love is a first-hand account of how extraordinary ordinary young Kingdom-builders can be. Bob Wilkinson Former Australian YCW and YCS Chaplain at parish and national levels, and former Pacific YCS Chaplain