12 January 2016



 Apologies for the delay

In the morning, we interns headed over to Sarah senior activity center where we were briefed about the Presbyterian Community Service and how they ran their organisation. After the long talk in the morning we headed off for lunch before  delivering food and other everyday products to the some of the elderly in the area.

The visitation to these homes was a truly enlightening experience for me personally as it was the first time in which i had ever taken part in activity such as this. Furthermore, through interacting with the elderly, I had learnt some priceless and valuable lessons.
 Firstly, a controlled sense of independence. Reason being that despite living in a small humble 1 room flat, the first elderly we visited didn't complain much but instead chose to live life happily (and from what i recalled) he was even talking about his independent life. Secondly, this is something many say, however it was something i did not really believe until my visitation. And that is our elderly are vulnerable to many. During our second home visit, we met with an elderly lady who had, because of a medicine, many spots on her legs. The reason she took the medicine in the first place was because of the pain in her back which led her to seek ways and means to mitigate the pain. This episode just comes to show that the elderly here in Singapore needs people to look after them and it also shows the importance of organisations like Sarah. Thirdly, kindness and thoughtfulness. Despite being blessed by the community, the elderly i spoke to didn't keep these blessings to himself but instead chose to share it with his under privileged Indian neighbors. He did so by taking all that was given to him and giving those in which he knew he would not need to them. Fourthly,patience. As people grow old,they tend to forget things easily, and for the case of our visitation, the elderly man we spoke to in the second visit had loads to say, however he would often so repeated the very same things he spoke just 5 mins ago. It just comes to show that as young people, we would not understand what the elderly are going through, their circumstances as well as their mental and physical health, however with patience, we learn to communicate with the elderly in a loving and gentle way so as to connect to them and in turn establish an inclusive society.

I had also learnt to appreciate life as it is. Seeing the living conditions in these flats- with it's narrow corridors, the poorly lit corridors etc, it made me see that God has blessed me with much. Furthermore, knowing that God has blessed me with so much, i had also learn to to have empathy on these people.

After the visit as well as fellowship, the interns attended a talk on homosexuality(talking point). Through this talk the speaker sought to address the issue of homosexuality as well as explain the most common verses scholars use when debating about this controversial topic. Firstly, Gen 19:1-9, he explained that this verse was not talking about the wrongs of homosexuality but rather the wrongs of a society who would gang up on the minority. Secondly, Lev 18:22 and 20:13. Despite my vague memory, i clearly remembered the speaker talking about the traditions of the ancient Israeli people. Some for example being forbidden to eat crab or having two materials in one's clothes and also that which was stated especially in lev 20:13 with the verse ending off with "they are put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." which leads many to question, if we christians are "okay" with simple acts such as breaking the former two traditions why is it not okay to break the latter? From the talk, we learnt that the best and most accurate argument we can present is that the former is no longer mentioned in the new testament while the latter is. He then goes on to talk about Romans 1:26-27, 1 cor 6:9 and 1 timothy 1:10 where he goes on to elaborate his views on homosexuality by breaking down the original text written in greek and making comparisons to the old testament texts.

-Hyo Jin