#3 Shining Love Program Part Two

The next day, I wore the shirt as I was instructed to. My mother and I drove to Woo Ye Sun College in the early afternoon so I could help set up.

Candace, the others and I helped wrap up the gifts and label them with names. We ordered party food from a local fast food chain and had them delivered to us. We then set up and laid the food and juice boxes out in arrays. We compiled a bingo chart and printed out an assort of copies.

It was mostly manual work, and since I was acquainted with most of the volunteers, I had a easy time doing all that. For the most part, I just participated and anticipated in the motions, and helped set up for the grand event.

When the time came, students and parents all flowed into the room. A powerpoint was set up for the graduation, and we had a little concluding speech to thank them all for participating in our event. My mother proceeded to step up and give a speech that roughly went like this:

"Do you kids like it here in CUHK?"

A resounding "Yes!" from the kids.

"Well then, we liked having you here too. You are our future. If you  work hard enough, you too can become students here. Our volunteers here are all students of this college, except for the exception of my daughter."

She went on to describe how the future is in our hands, how their families have immigrated over to give them a life of their own. How blessed they were that they have such loving families that allowed them to join these programs.

When she finished, the crowd erupted in applause. After awarding the kids for perfect attendance and good conduct, parents called my mother over and told her their life stories and asked about how they could give the best to their kids.

One particular mother worked minimum wage as a dish washer and came home past midnight every day. Her daughter was none less than Abigail, the little girl who was assigned under my care. I had a fondness towards her, and I found her a delight to have taught.

The mother told us that her husband had left her with another woman seeking to have a son. The mother and daughter were left to fend for themselves.  "Some nights," Said the woman, fighting back tears, "I would beat her.  But I really do want the best for her. I really do."

The daughter Abigail was smart beyond her years and her spirit was sweet. She reminded me of myself when I was her age; curious and outspoken about the world. Without thinking too carefully, I asked the woman, "Why don't you enter her into a gifted program?" The woman stared blankly back. "I have no money."

My mother nodded and gave the woman her card. "If you need anything, contact me."

I bit back emotion, and went off to distract myself. I stationed myself at the food station and started out dishing the salads and the siu mai to the parents and students. I smiled at their faces and shovelled plates of food relentlessly. All the other volunteers asked me to eat, as they took breaks here and there. I didn't faze and kept on shovelling, determined to just keep busy.

It numbed me, the service I did. I manned two stations single handedly in order to keep my mind off of the other stuff. In the meantime, my mother was called to her office to help out with the O Camp on campus. After all, she was the dean. She told me to go to her office just a floor underneath when it was over.

After the food, we then played bingo (read in English), and the volunteers and I roamed through the rows of tables and desks to check if any of the kids forgot to circle their numbers. As the kids they were, there were many who did not know how to circle the correct number.

The morale of the game was that "everyone is a winner". In the end, all the kids eventually got their numbers and all the gifts were dished out. The volunteers ushered the parents and children back to University station with a final adieu, and we bid our goodbyes to each other. I was glad to have met the students around here, and they were incredibly patient with me.

It was a joy, really.

I went down to my mother's office and she took me to the cafeteria for frozen yoghurt.

My mother and I sat adjacent from each other, and she quietly mused over her thoughts.

"You know, the lady told me so much in just so little time. Being in this group, she was underprivileged.

Every parent in Hong Kong wants their kid to end up in a college like CUHK. These people have rarely been able to meet a professor. I had to come.

The woman had so much toxic waste in her system that she just had to cathartically spill it out. It's like if you held a candy wrapper for long enough, you'd be delighted to see something as trivial as a trash can.

You see, raising a daughter like you made me understand and be able to help other people and kids like you. You're not alone, Victoria."

And I didn't feel half as bad.

This service as made me a lot more introspective and has taught me a lot. Whether I liked it or not made no difference. I was glad to have participated.

In the coming year, I promise that I would be more involved in service. For my sake and others.

Service is what you make it.

You get as much as you give, and you learn as much as you teach.

And it's worth it, every bit.

#2 Shining Love Program Part One

Service is what you make it.

Over the past year, I have not been consistent. Instead, I was facing some difficulties of my own.

However, over the summer, I have had the honour of working with CUHK, or the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My mother is a professor in the university, and it was simple for her to set me up. It was easy to set up and get going.

The program I selected was a children English teaching course. It was to help low income families and their children to spark an interest unlearning English.

As I walked into the classroom, heads turned. The staff were already gathered, a group of college sophomores from the university itself. They had a lot of respect for my mother, and I was intimidated by the standard she set.

We gathered around and started talking about the schedule. ON our first day, there were around 20 students that needed to be tended to. "This is not a tutoring class," said Jessica, the leader of the group. "The main purpose is to spark an interest in these kids to learn English. This is why we have kids from age 5 to 9."

When the kids were assembled downstairs, they were brought up to the classroom and were promptly put into groups.

I was paired with a girl named Candace, a year one student who has a great sense of leadership and a lot of patience. We were put with a group of what was meant to be four children but ended up being three.

There was a green booklet on the desk with simple Chinese and English on it. We were to learn to write and spell directory terms. There were sheets with the children's names on them that had a colourful array of stickers on them, and they accounted for points to redeem minor gifts like notebooks and pens, or a sheet of stickers.

The simplicity of children confused me. As a kid, I was not the popular type. Seeing a mass of children bond together confused me. For the first few minutes, I had three quiet children not doing much, as I just observed how others do it.

Other volunteers were ushering them to their seats, asking for their names, commenting on their clothing, showing them pictures on their phones, etc. I was anxious, I was extremely disabled in small talk, it was virtually impossible for me. I just went into the booklet pragmatically.

So it stunned me when I was the first to complete the booklet. I felt anxious afterward, when the kid I was tending to, Abigail, stared at me. I gave her a couple of stickers and she started laughing and teasing with the other kids.

I was never particularly good with children. Who I am disables me.

When I was on a service trip to Cambodia in my eight grade WWW, I told the children exactly what colour to fill in to the English workbooks. They coloured the grass green, the sky blue, the tiger orange. There were leeway with the flowers and clothes, but the trees had to be brown.

One of my friends glanced over and said, "You don't have to tell them exactly what colour to colour in, just let them do what they want." I didn't want to be the bossy one, so I stopped commanding the kids what to colour. It pained me to see them colour in the clouds green and the sun purple, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Now with the children at Shining Love, I was hesitant to do much. I didn't know what to do, although having a younger brother at around the same age. There was not much I could talk about, and I felt a little uncomfortable.

However, the children were friendly, and offered up topics. I forced myself to comply and followed Candace's lead.

The children had snack time, and we played a bunch of matching and direction games. It was lighthearted, and I strained myself to keep it as so.

After pretending to feel comfortable for a bit, I loosened up. I started responding, and shared some pictures with the children. I  taught them how to do a disappearing coin trick with a faulty origami envelope, and they taught me how to make an origami rabbit.

It was new, and I wasn't used to it. I was learning as much as they were, if not more. A class of students have never been so earnest and eager.

I felt like I was doing something meaningful, and so I kept on with the motions.

By the end of the service, I had gotten to know two of the children particularly well. Abigail and Polly. 9 and 5. I decided to go to the graduation to help out with the program grand finale, and meet up with the families of such children.

I was handed a Tshirt that I was to wear tomorrow, and I helped usher the kids home. Some even lived as far away as Shek Kip Mei or Quarry Bay.

I felt exhausted after the event, but I also felt refreshed.

I've done something, and have bound myself to new people. I don't know what will become of them, but I've done something in their wake. So that's something.

There's always something peculiar in children and elderly.

I guess my spectrum was broader, and I could only wait till the next day to see them again.

And that's exactly what I did.

(Part Two under editing)

#1: Crossroads.

For our first MAD project, our school decided to take the entire ninth grade to Crossroads for a third world simulation.

In this simulation, we traveled into a secluded room where equipment was already set up. David, our director, talked to us about what we'd be doing. He gave us a brief synopsis of what we were to do, and why we were doing it.

At first, the way he'd given the speech was kind of pretentious to behold, with a lot of pictures and statistics. It sounded mythical, and I didn't understand most of it. I couldn't relate, and it was hard to stimulate it. Not that I wanted to, to be honest.

It was a tactile education thing, I thought to myself. I was a rote learned visual learner, and I felt like this was just a field trip-esque thing.

The siren sounded, and we set into groups and started assigning each other to the roles provided. We were to fold and cut paper into makeshift paper bags with newspapers and dough. We had to "sell" them to the authorities to scrape by a measly "pay" in order to sustain ourselves.

The prices were inflated to unholy degrees, and the volunteers were relentless. It was an entirely different facet of themselves. They showed us the less beautiful parts of themselves. One that has went through toil and abuse, a harrowing past that cannot be revoked.

As we kept our hands busy, my heart was churning up at how they could actually relate to this. How much this meant to them and how much this could mean to other people. How hard people have worked, how much they do just for the idea of something "more than this".

It was so tangible, and they are clean cut problems. The inhumanity meant a rigged system. Pragmatically, it didn't matter whether they wanted to change their situation or not. They lived hand to mouth. Idealistically, they should be granted opportunities, human rights should be enforced, etc.

However, it didn't matter if they were geniuses or depressed, these statistics are irrelevant to them.

They lived for the sake of family. For the sake of living itself.

It makes me wonder.

As a kid who has been depressed (among other conditions) since the fourth grade, who's been in and out of clinics, wards, and the sort, it angers me.

It brings: "It's just not fair, but that's the world for you" to a whole new level.

Depression in itself and the suicidal ordeal becomes taboo. It's suddenly mandatory for people to bind themselves to life.

As I routinely tore, fold, and seal each bag, my hands slowly caking up with dried dough, I grew increasingly perturbed.

It's times and situations like these that makes you realise how precious life really can be, for someone who has it so much worse to insist on clinging to it.

When the siren sounded again, we dropped our work. We were told by David that although we could opt out of this, others cannot, and are enslaved to this. This made me understand that we really are not entitled to anything.

My friends and acquaintances and I wiped the sweat off our brows, peeling the dough off of our hands. We listened to David silently, all of us lost in thought.

I guess I didn't talk much after the trip for the rest of the day.

I didn't have much to say. I was too ashamed to be "depressed". The very idea of it being "medical" seemed like I was being self conceited. There was just so much anger and shame about the issue, I had no definite reaction.

I've always known my family has got it better than what most people have, and it's only fair that I should say that I acknowledge and fully understand it. But I don't.

Being born rich, I've lived in a coveted bubble of a first world, and I've ignored or brushed off other ideas or options. In a sense, I don't know what this is capable of. Humanity was for granted, and rightfully so.

I never went down to my bare necessities, since I never had to. I understand that there are the "less fortunate", but it was simply irrelevant to me.

So it jarred me to understand a situation where privation, famine, and hopelessness dominated.

Similarily, everything applicable to me was suddenly irrelevant to them. The "lesser fortunate" did not have Christ, the stability of a home, an education, a future.

I was told that if you worked hard enough, it will not go unrewarded. I was told that God had a plan for everyone, and this is infuriated me to see it.

This service had actually become a lot more personal than I was comfortable with going, and it really left a cloud in my head afterward. It made me reflect-- something that I generally roadblock and dismiss.

It was a very real thing. It made me feel conscious. And it made me want to return and come to a conclusion.

The epilogue of this post comes in the form of a camp.

In WWW, or "Week Without Walls", a trip organised by our school about going to places in and out of Hong Kong for a week to experience whatever it was we wanted to experience, I chose Crossroads once again.

It was a service trip, and I decided to take that opportunity to let the thoughts marinate and conclusions settle.

In that week, I went through simulations for AIDS, refugees, and for blindness.

I got past the shame I held for myself. I grew an admiration and respect for Crossroads. I knew that even though I feel like I cannot be the redeemer for these people, Jesus can be, through the hearts that are touched of the people who can.

I understood that the perception of pain and "realness" is extremely subjective. That if the "less fortunate" have reason to live, then I of all people should learn to love life. And so should everyone else.

Life is precious. Family is priceless. And love conquers all.

Introduction

Hey there, it's Victoria here.


This is my blog on MAD, Make A Difference.


This is a school based website on service that I'm going to complete over my high school years. On this blog, I will record my services to the community and show what I have done to make a difference here.


How will I do that? I guess I'll just have to find out with you. Until then, I guess I'd just have to stay committed to my ideas and reasons. I'm gonna try to get involved with different service plans and communities, and give my best in that.


I'd be updating pretty frequently- due to this being 1: a big part of my grade, and 2: something I find very meaningful.


To me, service is something that I, as a Christian, am called to do. I have a calling to go and make the world a better place with whatever I can offer, and I'd follow that calling on missions through service. Service is always a double win situation, and I learn as much as I teach, and gain as much as I give.


Service is inevitable to me, and I'd be going on an adventure to follow my calling.


Till next time.