Page 6 - BOOK inside pages as at Aug 8

Foreword by

Wong Chun Wai

am Kian Seng taught me a lesson that I will never
Sforget. When I visited him at Kajang Prison, he told me that
the word ‘hopeless’ begins with the root word, ‘Hope.’
We had just met and he was sharing with me, with great
enthusiasm, how he wanted to work for a Christian-based
non-governmental organisation.
I looked at him in bewilderment. I was staring at
a prisoner serving natural life imprisonment. Not life
imprisonment but natural life. That means he would die
inside the prison.
How could I ever get his sentence reduced, let alone get
him out of prison? But this man had complete faith. Not in me
but in God. Rightly so.
Sam was absolutely convinced that I would get him
pardoned by the King. I had to tell him that I did not know
the King. His armed robbery crime was committed in Kuala
Lumpur and that meant only the King could pardon him.
If it had been in Selangor, I could possibly have sought the
intervention of His Royal Highness the Sultan of Selangor.
In fact, Sam should have been on death penalty because
he was in possession of a gun illegally but he escaped the
gallows.
That was the message conveyed to me by the Attorney-
General’s Chambers as I began the campaign later for his
pardon.
Here he was, a man who was persistent and fully trusting
God, who would not give up hope of being released from life
imprisonment.
I could see in him his undying love and great desire for
God. Even in the most hopeless situations, he knew that God
would not give anything but the best to His children. After

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BOOK inside pages.indd 6 08/08/2018 05:43 PM