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| The food of lives, God's lesson for me. Picture taken in Onesimus Garden, rows of other beds of soils waiting to be ploughed. |
The start of the commission week had brought us to many eye-opening places. One of which included the Onesimus Garden. Pastor Andrew Choo and Grace are dedicated to helping a diverse range of people such as ex-convicts, single moms and mentally disabled. Using farming as a therapeutic and restorative therapy to engage people, the simple aim of both was to touch lives. Pastor Andrew shared with us how we could relate and reflect on the things of our lives while carrying out our assigned tasks. Some of us had a chance to get our hands busy in the greenhouse, preparing the soil for the next sow. I thought I would be able to changkol away some angst kept in me, built over the course of the year. However, as I plough on, I truly understood what God was speaking to me.
The greenhouse was hot and the morning rain had left an impact on the temperature of the greenhouse and the soil. After demonstrating how the soils had to be loosen and how the weeds had to be plucked out thoroughly, Pastor Andrew handed me his changkol. The wet compact soil made it more challenging to loosen them and that simple 20 minutes well taught me important lessons. As I changkol-ed on, I found many beautiful colors within the brown compact. It then dawned upon me that in the same way, God shakes us and breaks us at times, and that’s when beauty can be exposed and growth (of the plants too in this case) can literally take place.
At the end of my 20 minutes session with the soils, I was drenched with sweat and my hands were filled with blisters. Every hard work leaves a mark. Hard times in seasons of our lives can be painful and leave marks in us too. But all at the same time, if that opportunity wasn’t taken up, and that experience wasn’t gone through, I would have never learnt. I walked away from Onesimus Garden with the blisters throbbing with pain on my hands, but feeling thankful for God’s grace, lessons taught and simply revealing to me through such simple manners.
We had a chance to visit Healthserve at Geylang too on our second day this week. That was my first time sitting down with a migrant worker for a meal. Sharing his life with us openly despite our brief first meeting, our shu shu revealed to us some of the struggles migrants like himself face, far-away from home and in hopes of making a good income for his family back in China. Often times, we take our fellow migrant workers for granted, easily forgetting or ignoring how laborious and dangerous their jobs can be. Additionally, some like shu shu may be injured, hence finding it extremely difficult to find jobs (in the meantime while waiting for a solution to their problems, and finding themselves in large sums of debts having travelled so far to seek for employment).
Shu shu reflected to us how he was introduced to the Christian community by a friend and was really thankful that he met everyone who had extended a hand to help him and had eventually become a second family to him. It was a truly humbling experience that the church is contributing in ways to ease the physical and emotional burdens that some of our migrant workers may carry (and most of them feeling alone in their personal battle in a foreign setting). The meal had brought social issues that are occurring and well hidden within Singapore quite literally in my face. I sat beside Shu shu on the dinner table, sharing a space that belonged to all of us at that moment in time, and from that point onwards, remembering simply that these migrant workers are humans with emotions and needs, calling (sometimes screaming) simply for mutual respect from us, citizens of the host nation, who often neglect and easily discriminate against them. It was indeed the best dinner date (that is most meaningful) I had in a long while.
Wei Jun
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