Salvatorian Home

Today was just another Sunday for me until SLing asked me to send her to Salvatorian Home Ayer Salak for IJC LEO Club support for the Home. At first, I was temporarily unable to figure out where the place would be but after some consultation with my buddy, Errol , I was able to get to the place after church service today. What greeted SLing, SYuen and me were a total surprise - Smiling young boys and girls together with their caretakers ( 6 Christian nuns )! SLing's colleague and friend, Teresa together with her husband, Richard and 3 other girls from LEO Club IJC were at hand to be with the children presenting them with their request for schoolbags.

As usual, the children were shy and all that but seeing them so happy with the KFC meal was a great blessing to my heart. I managed to mingle around with the children and  very first person I spoke to was a 15 year old boy , Chia Fong, I think. From here, he introduced me to Julian and her sister plus two other girls. As they spoke mainly Mandarin as that was the medium of communication in that Home, I was struggling with my "pasar" Mandarin but at least, I "scrapped" through with what I could. Slowly  but surely, I managed to move from table to table , getting to know the children a little better. I learnt that the oldest was an 18 year girl while the youngest is a 3 year old girl. There are 18 children in the Home and the House is well-kept , clean and the children are clean. Things are orderly stacked and as I made my rounds in the Home, I realised just how fortunate our own children had been lest these young ones.

15 year old boy, Julian (left) and his sister (pink t-shirt )

As we got around to speak to Sister Mary, one of the caretakers, I realised how much love she got for these children. She spoke very fondly of the children together with Sister Jane who is actually the one in charge of the Home. Sister Mary shared about Chai Hong ( Rainbow) who came in as a child and would not speak a word until 2 years later as she was just very depressed. Sister Mary glowed so much when explained how Chai Hong spoke after 2 years later. It was such a relief for her as she has not known any child who was so gloom and as depressed as Chai Hong. She explained that normally children would be so happy but Chai Hong was the complete opposite. Sister Jane then explained to us that some of the parents of the children would just abandoned their child at their gates due to reason that they are separating and so on. She further informed that some children were abandoned as parents owed loan sharks a lot of money and so they leave their children in the Home. There are also children who were left to the Home as parents remarried other people and their new spouses don't want the previous marriage children and thereby , they were also abandoned. Gosh! Hearing Sister Jane's explanation, my heart cringed with sadness and it broke my heart. My heart was so touched when I learned that one of the young girls was actually taking care of her younger brother even when the parents were never around in their house. Eventhough, I had only managed to spend a few hours at the Home, I felt as if they were children I have known for years. I played with sisters, Petrina & Patricia, brothers Wei Tan & Wei Tian (twins ), Julian and his sister, Chai Hong and her sister and a host of other children. 

I also took a good look at the Sisters running the Home and I am very impressed. Discipline is maintained while love is the essence. Children will be children while discipline must be maintained. It was good to see love and discipline going in hand in hand. The older boy and girls would clean the table, stacked the chairs and take the younger ones in to take care of them or even to help them do some reading on a Sunday afternoon. According to Sister Mary, they had lacked nothing as the Lord had provided to their needs with the helpings & donations from well-wishers an donors. What they needed most is for  more men & women/ young men & women coming by to spend time with the children. Talk to them, play with them and teach them something.  Isn't it ironic that we all needed that "time" too in our everyday life? I guess, they (the children ) are accustomed to people coming by for a few hours, shower some gifts, play with them for a while and then go back to their regular routine. 

Youngest girl of the home, 3 years old (green t-shirt) and her sister, 8 years old ( red t-shirt )

I guess, looking at these children , I found myself  thanking the Lord for His blessings upon my life. I am really touched in my heart whenever I get such opportunity to challenge my heart. We all could throw in a few fistful of ringgits to help them out but sometimes, it is not about money but what we can offer from our hearts that is being sought. Mundanely, we have been so accustomed to such practise while we are also accustomed to others doing the walking or the work. I must confess that I am equally  convictedly guilty of this too at times. Maybe, it is time, we pick up our feet and walk it out ourselves to see what we can do for these children. Sometimes it is not about the money either . It is about showering the love from our hearts with what we can do like just talking and sharing some of our caring with children like these.

As I stepped out of the Home, I could not help but imagine what type of parents would do such things to these children. Even out of desperation, I would still fight till death before I give up any of my children. Afterall, should we bring our children into this world only to let them go through such numbing trial and tribulations in their lives or even to abandon them in such a state? I could not imagine any parent doing this but yet, this is a reality in our society today. I really wish that young couples would really learn about this reality today and recognised the fact that if you bring a child to this world, you had better learn to take care of that child and be good parents. Don't just make babies at your pleasure and forget the responsibility part. Afterall, it's not just a 9 minute pleasure and a 9 months torture thing but a real responsibility at the end! Can you imagine the trauma and the abandonment feeling a child has to go through knowing that his/her parents don't want them or abandon them! It is not a nice feeling and that's why I am ever thankful that people like Sister Jane, Sister Mary and the rest of the sister are still out there doing their best to shower God's love to these children. 

Thank you, Sister Jane, Sister Mary and the rest of the Salvatorian sisters of this Home!~