“We moved our family to Mexico for five months during our kid’s PSLE year” — Salt&Light

“Whose voice were we going to listen to? We had to be clear what God asked of us. We were certain God wanted us to go together. We just had to put our foot down to say ‘We are going.’”

Ultimately, their requests for their children to take a leave of absence were rejected as they did not meet the official criteria of approval. 

“Still, the schools acknowledged that, as their parents, we were assuming full responsibility for taking our children out of school for FDTS, although the children were nevertheless recorded as ‘absent without official reason’.”

As if they had not faced enough hurdles, Linda suffered a bad fall and fractured her right foot in the first week of January this year, two months before their departure. “The broken bones did not fuse after six weeks of casting, so I had to opt for foot surgery to aid recovery just six weeks prior to our travel date,” she said.

Linda underwent surgery six weeks before the family’s departure.

This accident did mean that, travelling with three young children, they could only manage four luggage bags and a carryon bag each, plus a wheelchair and crutches for Linda.

And as they had to take over teaching their children once they were overseas, they had to pack all the educational materials and send them ahead. But as the Ranch was off grid, receiving parcels was not a straightforward endeavour.

Linda said: “We had to courier the children’s textbooks, activity books and practice papers to San Diego and have our base leaders help deliver them to the Ranch. Our kids secretly wished that the huge courier box would somehow get lost in transit!”

Living out the prophecy

Adler admitted that although he was taking steps to obey God, there were many times he doubted his actions.

“When I did, I would go back and listen to the recording of the prophecy again and again, to reassure myself. I continued to ask: ’Is this really you, God?’. Looking back, I recognise that God orders our steps, and He usually leads us one or two steps at a time.”

Reasons to change their plans were plenty. Linda’s fall brought on an avalanche of doubts from well-meaning friends and family.

“People asked me if it was wise to go. Whenever I was facilitating programmes in OBS, I would be away for five days. Linda would talk on a greater responsibility to cover my absence in the family. With a broken foot, she can’t send the kids to school and even struggles with her own daily activities. It threw our family schedule upside down. There were a lot of arrangements to be made at work in order for me to be at home for the family,” Adler recalled.

Linda’s crutches (and wheelchair) were part of the Shos’ baggage when they flew to Mexico.

But the Shos were not giving up their plan to obey the Lord.

He said: “Each step of faith that I took, I would have a sense of what I should do next. That was how I moved and led the family. When I did what was laid upon my heart, I had peace and felt directed to walk into my next step. Every open door was a confirmation of a right step in the right direction. So step by step, we made it to Mexico. 

After long months of planning, the Shos finally stepped foot in Mexico.

“When we finally stepped into Rancho Abierto, I cried in my heart and with tears in my eyes: ‘We made it, God! By Your mercy and grace!’”

The Shos in Mexico.

Their daughters Zoie and Chloe-Ann chose to be baptised.

The programme that the Sho family partook in spanned 20 weeks: Lectures for 11 weeks, followed by outreach work for eight weeks, and a final week for debriefing. 

“This is a family discipleship programme, so it involves and caters to everyone in our family. All of us were involved in outreach together!” Linda explained. 

Together with their children, Linda and Adler had to rank their top three preferred locations for the eight weeks of outreach. 

“We felt the Lord leading us to stay in Mexico and to go to three different cities to conduct outreach. We went to the YWAM bases in Morelia, Mazatlan and Durango, which are all very family-friendly,” Linda said.

“One of the more interesting things we experienced in Morelia was when our team had to help ‘rebuild’ a part of the church led by a Pastor who is visually impaired. The Pastor, with his limited vision had managed the church and put up fixtures by himself. So when you enter the church, you would notice that the beams were slanted, the decoration was a little mismatched, and some walls were half built. It was okay but not quite there.

The outreach team helped visually-impaired Pastor of the church in Morelia make repairs to the church and to minister to the people.

“Together with the local YWAM base, our outreach team helped to do up the church. The men rebuilt part of the wall, straightened the beam, and the women and children helped clean up the place. The women and children also took time to ask God for a word of encouragement for the Pastor and his wife. The Lord spoke to each of us, and we drew His words onto a canvas and presented the completed art piece to the church,” she described.

Together with team members and her daughters, Linda ministered to people in Morelia.

Their family outreach to Morelia was one of the key memories for the Shos.

Serving together as a family gave the Shos many opportunities to witness God at work. Linda shared that during one outreach event, “we prayed for an elderly woman and she was healed of her backache, after which five of her family members came to know Christ!”

They also discovered that being Asian was an advantage when it came to outreach: “The Mexicans are very curious about Asian cultures, and that really broke the ice when it comes to reaching out to the lost,” said Linda.

Building friendships and fellowshipping with youth workers in Mazatlan.

Preparing for PSLE in Mexico

As it turned out, the pros outweighed the cons when it came to Zoie’s PSLE preparation and Chloe-Ann and Oliver’s academic progress.

Adler and Linda became home-school teachers to their kids, with Linda focusing on the languages and Adler taking on mathematics and science. 

“We took every window of opportunity we had to work on revision, to teach, to practice and to challenge,” said Linda. “Of course, we played a lot as a family too. It was a beautiful time to prepare for PSLE at Rancho Abierto and the other parts of Mexico. Other than the usual textbook learning and activity sheets practice, Zoie became grounded with nature and experienced a different sort of life in her milestone year.”

Homeschooling in session: Zoie working hard with her mother’s support.

PE lessons consisted of tree-climbing, cabin cleaning, and hiking up and down mountains. Music lessons came in the form of praise and worship. Science lessons included understanding extreme temperatures in the Ranch, observing the real life cycles of frogs, bugs, snakes and other animals around her.

Science lesson in progress.

It was a lovely time in Mexico, even for revision and doing practice papers.

“She read books and interacted with her international friends, understood cultures and the way of life of other people,” Linda noted.

There were good days when husband and wife felt, based on practice papers, that Zoie was ready for exams. And there were days when they felt they were not coaching her sufficiently. 

“At some point, we got really sick of studying, and allowed ourselves cheat days, to the delight of our children,” Linda quipped.

Zoie and Chloe-Ann graduating from Foundation Course. They made friends from all over the world and learned about other cultures.

Adler added: “I felt it was beneficial for her to prepare for her exams without the pressure-cooker environment she would have faced in Singapore. Yet sometimes, we felt she was too relaxed and we got worried too. 

“But when we returned to Singapore, and her teacher asked the class to rate how stressed out they were preparing for PSLE, and Zoie gave it a 2 out of 10.”

Zoie received her results yesterday (November 25) during the nationwide PSLE results exercise. 

Linda told Salt&Light: “Zoie is happy with her results and felt that she has performed within her expected grades. She had an incredible time at the Ranch, deepened her faith in God and enjoyed building friendships with friends all over the world, and still achieved good results to receive a G3 posting at the end of the day.”

Five months in Mexico, away from Singapore-style exam prep, and Zoie Sho earned a G3 PSLE result. The Shos give glory to God.

Growing in God, growing as a family

The five months the Shos spent in Mexico were an enriching period of bonding not just as spouses and with their children, but entering into a deeper relationship with God.

Adler found he deepened in three areas: In himself, his marriage and in his role as parent. 

“I realised in my Christian journey, I have worked to try to get God’s and people’s approval. I was always running after the ‘thou good and faithful servant’. But God has been wanting to say to me, ‘This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased’. Knowing and experiencing this truth has been powerful and transformational for me.

“For families to thrive, our marriage needs to be set on a firm foundation. There are still many things we need to work on in our marriage. I thank God for Linda and my children. I will enjoy them as they are God’s blessing. I continue to ask ‘How can we be one?’ 

Husband and wife preparing chilli crab in Mexico during Culture Night. Going through FDTS has deepened their marital relationship.

“During one of the family worship sessions, God told me to surrender my children to him, to let go of control so that they could be His children. ‘What is my role then?’ I asked Him. The answer came from His Word that we are to ‘train our child the way they should go, so that they will not depart from it when they grow old’. From then on, I learnt to take on God’s perspective and surrender my children to God. I told my children that night what God spoke to me and I surrendered them to God. My children were shocked!”

Linda found herself changed by the 11 weeks of FDTS lectures. “The teaching phase covered a lot of topics which reshaped my fundamentals and foundations in understanding the relationship I had with God,” she told Salt&Light.

“I had a massive ‘open-heart surgery’ throughout the training phase – it helped me experience a breakthrough in my walk with God, and took it to another level.”

During the teaching phase, we touched on topics like ‘Friendship with Jesus’, ‘Hearing the Voice of God’ and ‘Identity in Christ’. These might have simple titles but they were transformative teachings. I now have a very different outlook in the way I perceive Jesus as my Friend, as Lord, as my Maker and Lover of my soul.”

What made their journey truly special was that the Shos had deep experiences with the Lord together as a family. 

FDTS showed Adler and Linda that they were meant to co-minister with one another and their children, and live out their conviction that Jesus is the foundation of their faith.

Each time the children turned to God for answers, “the Lord showed up”, said Linda.

“The children, Adler and I would come together to listen to the voice of God. We involved Him in making decisions, such as which outreach location to go to, whom we should look for and pray for during local outreach, even where to find a specific item that the children had lost. Every time, the Lord showed up, which showed us all that our children can hear the voice of God too!” Linda marvelled.

“This will continue to be the pivotal moment and strong foundation in their life: That our God is their God, and we as His children can hear His voice. Our prayers will be that Jesus will continue to be the lighthouse in their life, and they can hear the voice of God guiding their lives as they grow.”

The next chapter

Having had such a powerful experience, the Shos are now intending to return to Mexico at the start of 2026 for two other schools of training: Homestead Improvement & Management for Families and Family Discipleship Bible School under YWAM’s University of the Nations.

The FDTS Class of 2025. Adler, Linda and their children will be embarking on another school come 2026.

“If the Lord wills and directs our steps, we are willing to follow. We have decided to build our family in the way the Lord directs. We are also keen to look at serving the YWAM Base as staff in between the two periods, if the plans work out. At this point, we are really taking one step at a time,” said the Shos.

Adler and Linda have both been granted an extension of no-pay leave from their respective jobs, and are currently speaking with their children’s schools about potential absence.

The next challenge is that 2027 will be Chloe-Ann’s turn to sit for PSLE. They also have to wait till the end of December to find out Zoie’s secondary school posting.

As for when they will return to Singapore, Adler quoted James 4:13-16, “Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will belike tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.”

“We are praying for God’s leading, open doors and for His favour for many, many things,” Adler said. “We will continue to listen in to what God is saying and directing. James 4:17 is key: ‘Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. 

“May God help us and He does.”

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