Thank you, Asia "Service Opportunities" (78 days left)

March 14, 2021

Since living in Asia I have engaged in more service than I even understood myself until creating this blog.  It began with KIS students collectively supporting an orphanage in Luang Prabang, Lao.  I organized some fundraisers for "Support Lao Children" for a few years.  And then when we left Korea I continued personally supporting a student, Sommon, to attend law college for four years after he had graduated from the orphanage school. 

A letter from Sommon

Also while in Korea, we first read a book by Jackson Kaguri and then had Jackson come to our school.  He wrote A School for my Village after starting a school in his village in Uganda for all of the children orphaned by AIDS. (See more at the link to Nyaka). Our family's partnership with Nyaka continued even as we moved to Hong Kong and in March 2020 Brent was all set to take an interim trip to Nyaka with HKIS students for one week; unfortunately the pandemic had other ideas.  We would still like to volunteer at Nyaka one day.

My final two years in Korea I worked with my church to teach English to North Korean Refugee Women.  This was a transformative experience that I have written about in a prior blog.  However, it set the stage for some of the service I would do later. 

A similarly powerful day of service was meeting some of the living Comfort Women remaining in Korea.  These were Korean women who were forced to be sex slaves to Japanese occupiers during WWII.  These women were being cared for by an NGO who gathered the ageing women together to be taken care of in community.  A group of us visited with the women and sang songs and ate with them.  Admittedly, they were doing more service for us than we were to them.  Yet it was a powerful and memorable day.  To this day, Japan has not yet fully taken responsibility for these atrocities. 

Once in Hong Kong I found my first few years of Interim weeks to be with the Social Awareness group.  We met with an NGO begun by one of our alumni, "Mother's Choice."  This organization helps care for pregnant young ladies and walks them through creating adoptions plans as needed.  It also provides sex education to schools.  We also worked with the students at the Chi Lin Nunnery School exchanging fun games and stories with 13-17 year old developmentally challenged students.  

Presently, Brent and I sponsor a teacher with the Garuna Foundation by paying her salary for a year.  The Garuna Foundation works in SE Asia and its mission is to "support and encourage the proclamation of grace, mercy, and compassion of Jesus Christ to the people of Thailand and Cambodia and surrounding countries."  (You can learn more here at Garuna.org.) 

While in middle school, Adam was required to do some service.  He chose to work with the Missionaries of Charity in Hong Kong.  The sisters provide a soup kitchen called "Home of Love" in the Sham Shui Po district where there is a high population of homeless.  We returned several times to work with them on Sunday mornings.  I was surprised to learn how many of volunteers were helpers taking their only free day of the week to serve the poor in this way.  Most of the time we helped prep the food, peeling or cutting vegetables. 

And then, in 2018 and 2019, I had the privilege of leading the Children of Kolkata Interim trip with students from HKIS.  I have already written about experiences of volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity there.  It was extraordinary and transformative.  Additionally, our school has had long-standing relationships with two other organizations, Future Hope and Anondo Trust.  The Future Hope organization houses and educates slum children and street children from Kolkata. (You can learn more here at futurehope.net) Set up in 2006, Anondo Trust is a registered charitable trust working with disadvantaged children in Kolkata, West Bengal.  

Future Hope and HKIS kids played on the Meidan for hours

Our 2018 Children of Kolkata Interim group

Finally, also in April 2018, just a month after completing my interim trip to Kolkata, I volunteered with my Church of All Nations group to go to Cambodia where we worked with Concordia Welfare and Education Foundation (CWEF).  With CWEF's help, we worked with school children at Bos Plu, this time teaching a bit of English and connecting with them through play.  More importantly, we brought education about the importance of drinking clean water and hand washing using a puppet show.  I have a full blog post from that time you are welcome to read.  (You can learn more about CWEF here.)

At the pastor's house with so many children.  So dusty.

At the Bos Plu school, the school building in the background

What's next?  I don't know.  But I trust I will continue to find ways to serve my community and world.