Dr. Andrew Ng

“Would SIM accept a missionary from Asia?” I was 18 years old when I wrote that question to SIM Australia. It was my first contact with SIM, which at that time consisted entirely of missionaries from European-background countries. Imagine my surprise when I, an unknown Asian teenager, received a personal visit from the Australia Director, Dr. John Neal himself! “Yes,” he said, “SIM would gladly welcome an Asian missionary.” When I told a friend about my inquiry to a western mission agency, he asked, “Do you know what you’re doing? You’ve just handed SIM a ‘live grenade,’” meaning a hot explosive issue. Eleven years passed before my wife Belinda and I finally made our way to Galmi, Niger, in 1977 to serve as medical missionaries at the SIM hospital there.

Only God knew what a good “explosion” He had planned for SIM in Asia. In 1990 I was named the first director of the Asia office, and in 1992 we became a separate sending office of SIM International. During the 1990s, SIM joined partnerships that took us into Central Asia.

SIM East Asia comprises eight sending councils with more than 50 council members in ten Asian countries. Even though churches in Asia are a tiny minority among billions who follow other gods, they currently support 50 workers sent out by SIM East Asia to SIM teams around the world.