It was a quiet Chinese New Year's eve. I was cycling along the Kallang River when I came across these two men feasting on Tiger beer and canned food (fried dace - a type of fish - and stewed pork), on one of the picnic benches lining the river. I stopped and asked to take a picture, they obliged and invited me to join them. I did.

They were construction workers from China, both from the same village, so this was their reunion dinner of sorts. We chatted about the weather in Singapore, about how the people here have a better work-life balance than in China, about where Singaporeans' ancestors hailed from.

One of them had a burning question: The river in the middle of town (he meant Rochor Canal) had plenty of fish in it - why was there nobody catching the fish?

I paused for a moment before churning out some plausible answers - the water was dirty and polluted, people considered the fish worthless, some people were afraid it might be against the law (even if it wasn't), and that Singaporeans prefer to buy their fish from the market. He seemed a bit puzzled at my answers, as though he could not understand why Singaporeans failed to avail themselves of a free plentiful food source, but left it at that. He had assumed that the fish for sale in the markets came from the river - I explained to him that most of it was imported from neighbouring countries.

It began to drizzle, and I bid a hasty farewell, and went on my way. As I cycled home, I thought about what we had been talking about, particularly the part about the fish in the river. It occurred to me that God had a lesson here for me.

The many foreign workers from China and other countries are there for harvesting. They are teeming in our city, open to the gospel, waiting to be caught. Why are we not catching them? Is it because we consider them dirty, polluted, worthless? Are we afraid of imaginary legal restrictions? Would we rather go on short mission trips overseas rather than cast our nets on this side of Singapore?

It came to me then that this was not an original idea. Jesus himself first recruited His disciples by saying "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matt 4:19)

Let's go fishing!