Transformation of One Of The Ten Most Wanted Men In Singapore - Testimony of Rev Neville Tan

Neville’s brush with the law began when he was just fourteen. He became involved with gangland activities after his release from prison at the age of sixteen. By the time he was seventeen, he had become one of the top gang leaders in Singapore. At seventeen and a half, he was involved in a major gang war that resulted in the death of an opposing gang member. He was sentenced to hang for his involvement in the gang murder.

Under British law, however, no youth under the age of 18 could be hanged. So, Neville was sentenced to be detained indefinitely at Her Majesty’s pleasure. That was worse than life imprisonment because of the indefinite period of prison term that he might have to serve.

After seven years, Neville was pardoned, and he promptly organized a new street gang which was subsequently involved in multiple robberies across the island. This time, Neville and his gang had resorted to the use of firearms in their criminal activities. They had become more dangerous and a menace to society. The robberies brought in much money and valuables but before too long, the police were tracking him.  He was again arrested and slated for trial in Singapore's "high court." 

While waiting for trial, he faked insanity and was incarcerated in a mental hospital. He knew that the security was slacked at the hospital and took the opportunity for a daring escape. He, with two other inmates, had overpowered two doctors, bound a guard, and climbed onto the roof and jumped over a 20-foot wall to freedom.

He was at large for almost a year and became one of the ten most-wanted men in Singapore until he was recaptured. Pressured into a plea bargain and confession, he was sentenced to seven more years, plus whipping.

His pattern of being tough, merciless and sly continued in Changi Prison. Soon he had other prisoners doing his laundry, cleaning his cell. He even managed to profit through gambling and a money-lending racket.

Then came Neville’s nemesis – a prison guard who was willing to make life miserable for him. Neville gritted his teeth at the thought of that guard, insulting, nagging, who had tried to provoke him into retaliation—and thus solitary confinement. 

Eventually, Neville had concluded that he was fated to be sent into solitary and determined to make that guard pay. He had found a piece of metal. Day after day, he patiently sharpened it on the cement floor, shaping it into a crude dagger. 

At last, he was ready for the despicable guard.

He waited impatiently for the guard to come on duty, but the man did not show up. The following day, there was a surprise search of all the prison cells and the dagger was found. He was immediately rushed into a solitary confinement cell.

It was during this time of confinement that Neville began to experience the most dreadful feeling that almost drove him insane. His long period of confinement had caused his mind to succumb to "claustrophobia." A dreadful reaction of the mind that caused him to fear the confinement of a small space and thus he kept having dreadful nightmares of being buried alive in a coffin. He often woke up with a fright and could not go back to sleep again. 

It was during one of those nights when he was experiencing one of his worst attacks of claustrophobia that he had a miraculous experience. Another prisoner from a cell nearby had managed to smuggle some pages from a book for him to read. Neville found out that the pages had been torn out from the New Testament. In anger, he had crumpled the pages and flung them away towards the toilet bowl in his cell. Neville brooded for a while, but his eyes kept looking at those crumpled pages on the floor.

Finally, to allay his boredom and curiosity, he picked them up and began to read. The story was told of an elderly man, Zechariah, and his aged wife (probably a hundred years old, thought Neville) had no children. There was an angel telling this elderly man that his equally elderly wife would become pregnant and bear a son. Neville smirked to himself, “What a joke! This old lady pregnant!”

Mocking at the ridiculousness at such a narrative, he read on. The second story was just as incredible - a young woman who was a virgin was also told by the angelic visitor that she too would become pregnant! 

His cynical mind was greatly amused as he thought of how stupid the story was. Maybe, he mused the angel would appear to a young man next and say to him, "Young man, you will be pregnant!"

Despite his cynical feeling, Neville continued to read. "You shall call his name Jesus," the next line reported. Neville tensed. That name! What had those missionary teachers said? That if anyone asked anything in the name of Jesus, God would answer his prayer. Neville’s manipulative mind began to devise a plan to activate the help of God, “Yes, that was it! I will do just that!”

"God," he proclaimed, "in the name of Jesus, get me out of this room!"

He then went and looked through the spyhole, half expecting the door to be flung open. It did not. The next day came and nothing happened. The door remained tightly shut. Furious that God had not done anything, he began shouting at God.

"God, I won't let you off! Get me out of this cell!" he demanded.

The next day came, and the next and the next, no miracle happened. Neville was perplexed but he was persistent in reminding God that he was asking this request in the Jesus' name and was expecting an answer.

"God, I hold you to your promise," he declared with sheer determination.

The 10th day and the 11th day streamed by and God was apparently not listening.

On the 15th day of that desperate prayer, the door was opened. As Neville was led out, he turned to look back at the cell where he had been confined. By the door was written notice: “Prisoner 7172 is to remain locked in maximum security until the day of his discharge.” It was an order signed by the prison superintendent.

Somehow that order had been canceled. If that order was to be carried, Neville knew that he would have become a mad man.

When Neville walked near the door area, his fellow inmates were in disbelief. They had heard of the extreme order given by the prison superintendent and in their mind, Neville was as good as dead.

"How did you get out?" they queried, amazed.

The name of Jesus was on Neville's lips. But how could he say it? It would sound as silly as to say he was pregnant. To be “religious” would make him out as a “queer!”

He saw admiration in the eyes before him. His pride soared.

"I threatened the superintendent into letting me out," Neville told his adoring audience.

Yet down inside Neville felt convinced that Someone bigger than the prison superintendent, some Superhuman Power had worked in his behalf. He was certain that a miraculous answer had been given to his prayers. Why would the superintendent change his mind? Why would he risk allowing an "incorrigible" inmate who was a security risk to associate with the other inmates? The name of Jesus was again the only convincing answer to those questions.

The relief of that relative freedom was tremendous. But soon the monotony of prison life returned. No one came to visit him, not even his mother who previously had never failed to visit him.

Finally, a letter came from his brother: their mother, hospitalized with cancer, had been given only two weeks to live. Yearning to see her one last time, Neville asked to be allowed to visit her. His request was denied.

Fond memories rushed in - his mother, during the harsh days of the Japanese occupation, always gave her own food rations to him and his brother. When Neville’s father had frightened him and his brothers with horror stories, it was his mother who came in the night to calm their fears. It was his mother who had loved him through all his troubled years. In fact, his mother had been a little too indulgent with him in spite of the fact that he had slowly turned into an unruly and lawless person.

Full of remorse, Neville longed for an opportunity to see his dear mother, face to face, so that he could say that he was sorry and to beg her forgiveness. But it was not to be so - soon word came from his brother that their mother had passed away. Neville learned that his mother while dying, was screaming and longing for her absent son.

Shameful of his moral failure and disappointing his mother with a wasted life, Neville was overwhelmed with grief. Added to this guilt was the realization that from that point on, there would be no one who will care for him like the way his mother did.

“When I get out, who will receive me?” he lamented to himself.

With nothing to live for, the despairing young man decided to kill himself. Grieving, despondent, he pondered how to commit suicide. He finally decided to swallow a whole cake of carbolic soap. As he was pondering how he could do that, a line from an old hymn drifted into his mind, “The Lord is my shepherd.” The rest of the words he could not recall.

He turned to a New Testament left in his cell by the Gideons International. He searched for Psalm 23, one scriptural portion that he had memorized in his boyhood at the mission school, but now mostly forgotten. Quickly he thumbed through the pages of the New Testament, then again, turning the pages a bit more slowly, but his search was in vain.

Frustrated, he hurled the book against the wall of his cell. Unhappily, he picked up a cigarette. Remembering that prisoners often hid split match sticks behind the spines of books, he began looking for the Testament which he had earlier hurled away. It lay open on the floor, open at the Psalms! During that time, the New Testament published by Gideon International always included a portion of Psalms.

He began reading the verses of the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd ... Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear. for Thou art with me...."

"For thou art with me!" Those words gripped him as though they had been spoken aloud.

Neville began to tremble, sensing a Presence with him in his cell. As he sank to his knees beside his bed, the Holy Presence enveloped him. Overwhelmed, humbled, his rebellious spirit melted in the realization that Someone cared, loved him, even more than that of his mother. Warm tears flooded his eyes and flowed down his cheeks… the first tears he had shed since his childhood.

“God, just take my life and do what You will,” he sobbed.

It was a total surrender - no mere turning over a new leaf. The man who had asserted destructive power now accepted the lordship of a Greater Power.

A wonderful sense of spiritual refreshment came upon him that evening. And he could not describe the joy he felt in his spirit. Gone were the thoughts of suicide and gone was the hopelessness.

The following morning, he began reading his New Testament. From then on, all his free time was spent in assimilation of New Testament.

Other inmates noticed a change in him and began to tease him. Some called him a "Holy Joe" and considered him as a religious fanatic. But their words did not daunt his spirit. His serenity was undisturbed. No longer was he ashamed of a relationship with God. For he had learned that God loved him. This was a relationship he prized. Now it seemed natural to him.

The change that came into Neville’s life was not a temporal one. It was a lasting one and today, Neville is still faithfully serving His Master. After his release from prison in the early seventies, Neville worked for a while as an account clerk in a Departmental store. 

Later he gave up his full-time job to study at Singapore Bible College. During his course of study, he met Anne, who was then the secretary to the Dean of the Bible College. They got married and were blessed with three children. 

After his graduation, Neville was invited to serve with Rev. Khoo Siaw Hua, the prison chaplain, in the prison ministry. Later he served with Rev. Henry Khoo, son of Rev Khoo Siaw Hua, at the Reformative Training Centre. 

Since then, his main ministry has been to help street kids, drug addicts and those who are following the same path to destruction that he did. Neville counts it a privilege to share the Gospel with these people and to lead them to Christ. Subsequently, he became a mentor to many of these reformed lives and he is proud to see many of them living a successful Christian life.

Today Neville is the founding pastor of the Church of God (Evangelical). He has been instrumental in pioneering several congregations in Malaysia and Indonesia. Gifted as an evangelist, Neville has traveled widely to many parts of the world to preach the same Gospel that saved him while he was in prison.

(extracted from the book "Meet Neville Tan" by Viola Phillips, Anderson, Indiana, U.S.A.)