An Interview with Rudy & Bao Yan on using their marketplace skills for Kingdom Work
Resource Global Singapore Cohort 2020: Husband and wife Rudy and Bao Yan are leveraging their professional architectural training and entrepreneurial strengths to accomplish amazing Kingdom works. In this interview, they share their journey on being missional with their business – and their goal to transform marginal communities.
What led your thinking towards integrating faith and work, and being missional with your business?
After graduating, I (Rudy) worked in large architectural companies. After 7 years, I started asking God if there was anything more to my profession and my faith. In 2014, at the peak of my career, I resigned to pursue God in a mission school. I bought a one-way ticket to Africa where I was part of Heidi Baker’s Iris Global Ministry. We lived among the poor community – HIV stricken, lepers, widows, orphans, child soldiers and child brides. This proved to be life changing.
My eyes and heart were opened to poverty of epic proportions. It was no longer statistics to me. Poverty has a face. Poverty has a name. It has smell, and it has context. This brought about a paradigm shift to how I would later intersect my life, my profession and my faith. I became cognizant of my skills as tools of transformation.
After 3 months in Africa, I returned to Singapore and was determined not to live life the same way and thus Genesis Architects was born in 2014 and based in Singapore.
How did you envision that Genesis Architects would be different?
I wanted Genesis Architects to be used by God as a vehicle for purpose-driven design. The practice would strive for design excellence commercially, but it would also be equally focused on working on mission-aligned architectural projects that would transform lives and communities in developing countries. Architecture, in a simple expression, is humanitarian. It provides roofs over families, classrooms for children to secure a better future. Thus, we established our branch office for Genesis Architects in Rwanda.
Share with us some of your pro-bono projects?
In Rwanda, I teach at the University as a Visiting Lecturer and we started to hire and train some of these architectural graduates. The missional purpose was to empower them to transform their own nation - and we firmly believe that Rwanda shall be built by her people. In the recent Resource Global Online Class, Michael Ramsden shared that true leaders build capabilities, not create dependencies. This really resonated with us.
Our current projects in Rwanda include a blind school for 300 children - providing them with a safe environment for learning; and a vocational school for tribal communities to be equipped with literacy and practical skills - providing them with opportunities for modernisation. Telling them that God loves them is not enough, we should also give them practical ways of coming out of poverty.
In Mozambique, we are involved in designing a full-fledge university under Heidi Baker’s Iris Global Ministry. Our contribution is cross-disciplinary - from the masterplanning, to the architectural and interior design, landscaping, as well as fund-raising. The aim is to empower and equip the next generation of Africans, by offering a comprehensive range of courses from medicine, law, engineering, business administration, marine biology, maritime studies, and a theological school.
In Democratic Republic of Congo, we are partnering with a non-government organizations, including Justice Rising, to design prototypes and build 40 primary schools in rural areas. These schools are supporting child soldiers, child brides, and refugee children. Our works also include raising awareness. So far, 18 schools have been completed.
We also have works in Southeast Asia. The Living Waters Village in Kalimantan is home for about 700 children who were orphaned or abused/ abandoned by their parents. We are helping them design several facilities - from an air strip, to a 1200-seat auditorium, and elderly care facility for the older family members of the children to be cared for in the Village. Pastor Ronny Heyboer ,who founded the Village, wants the children to honour their parents as it’s commanded in the Bible.
I also lecture at the Singapore Polytechnic and, in 2017, started accepting interns, and focuses on students at risk. We expose them to our pro-bono humanitarian projects and we have seen how interns respond positively to the entire experience. Realizing how their skills can be used to make a difference in people’s lives have given them added meaning and purpose.
What have you learnt or how have you been changed through all these experiences that you have?
One thing we have learnt is that we must stay true to our call and our core beliefs. It’s easy to focus only on economic gains. We want our practice to glorify God, and build projects that will really transform lives.
We see God’s hand in the fruits of our work. In DR Congo, children used to be trained as soldiers to kill in exchange for food. The vulnerable get sold off as child brides; the defenseless coerced against their wills. In our schools, things are different. We provide the children with meals, love, and education for a better future.
We also see how God provides for us in our businesses. Once, when we were presented with a pro-bono University project, we weren’t sure how our involvement would look like – as a pro-bono project of this scale would require a lot of time and resources without the revenue.
We prayed, and felt God’s peace and leading to take this up. And when we did, God really surprised us - within the same month, we landed our biggest commercial project yet - a resort island project in The Maldives.
On another occasion, when we felt led by the Holy Spirit to hire and train genocide survivors who were architecture students from Rwanda. We knew it would also cost us a big sum of money. And praise God that when we obeyed Him, He provided. Soon afterward, we were awarded a very unique project - to design a production studio for a singer-songwriter in Taiwan and, through that, the funding for our African interns was secured.
Whenever we say yes to a missional project, God would never fail to provide. When we step into His vision, His provision always comes. It shows that we serve such a great, generous, and faithful God. Abba God wants us to serve our brothers and sisters without being short-changed ourselves.
For Christian business owners, I would say the most important thing is to sincerely seek God. Don’t embark on your own ideas, but seek God and listen for His assignment and leading. Do not despise what is in your hands, these are clues to the assignments God may have for you. And do not despise humble beginnings, it could be as simple as feeding one person and this is already delighting God’s heart. Remember that God’s economy is different from man’s economy. God is a God of abundance and can open heaven above for our businesses. God’s laws and economy work differently. The Bible says He measures the entire universe by the span of his fingers. That’s how big God is, and He can provide - just not always in the form and manner and timing that man can think of.
How can people contribute to the pro-bono projects that you are involved in?
We have various pro-bono projects in Africa and Southeast Asia. Perhaps God will put on people’s hearts how they can play a part to be used by God to impact lives and transform communities. It could be lending their direct expertise to help the schools, or contributing financially to help with the construction or operations (running the programmes and providing meals for the students), or any way that the Holy Spirit would inspire and lead. We would love to welcome like-minded individuals and corporations to come partner us in these Kingdom projects and experience what God is doing through and for His children and glorify Him.
Please visit www.genesis-architects.com if you are interested to learn more about our practice, or are looking to develop/ design your new space!