OLPS Mission Outreach: December 2006

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Tanjung Pinang Mission Outreach December 2006

The Mission Outreach Team to Tanjung Pinang arrived at OLPS about 6.30 pm this evening, all exhausted but touched by the Holy Spirit guiding us through the 4 days at the Asrama.

We cleaned their Chapel, the windows on the ground floor, painted the dining, study cum recreational room, the one side of the Asrama’s corridors, washed and painted the kitchen, cleared the choked drains, went to the market to buy food, brought from Singapore and cooked spaghetti for the boys, invited the girls from the boarding home next door to BBQ and a day at the beach, and had an open and frank discussion with the “management team” at the Asrama.

Although we were unable to put in more time for the prayers we had planned, we knew that He had an important task for us on the trip. We needed to spend more time with the boys to understand what we can do for them and the Asrama. And we were nevertheless, able to accomplish much because of the prayer warriors from you, the Partners in the Gospel, our CFC Household, and many individuals who volunteered to pray for this mission outreach trip.

The Asrama has the same challenges managing their teenage boarders as any such institution in Singapore except for the more trying environment. We left something behind to remind the boys of the outreach trip by OLPS and they know we stand ready to help them “fish” for themselves.

As this is an effort we know will require more than the resources available in the team who went, we would like to seek your support in making it work for the Asrama and His children living there. It will be small steps we take but we know it can be done if it is His will.

May God be praised!

Carol
OLPS Mission Outreach Team

Why it is more blessed to give than to receive

Saint Vincent de Paul once gave an instruction to his religious community that sounded something like this : "When the demands of life seem unfair to you, when you are exhausted and have to pull yourself out of bed yet another time to do some act of service, do it gladly, without counting the cost and without self-pity, for if you persevere in serving others, in giving yourself to the poor, if you persevere to the point of completely spending yourself, perhaps someday the poor will find it in their hears to forgive you. For it is more blessed to give than to receive, and it is also a lot easier!"

That might sound curious. Why do the poor need to forgive us? For what do we need to be forgiven? Shouldn't we feel good about serving others?

All of us, I suspect, have a pretty good sense of what he means. We all know that there is a certain humiliation in needing to receive, just as there is a certain pride in being able to give. The things we often complain about are really our greatest blessings: What is worse than being too busy? Having nothing to do. What is more painful than having to give away something we own? Having nothing to give away. What is harder than being dragged out of bed to minister to someone in need? Being the person who is in bed and who needs someone to help him or her. What is harder than being brought to our knees asking someone else for his or her time and energy? It is more blessed to be able to give than to receive, and it is easier. But there's more.

There is a certain divine power, literally, in being able to give. The one who gives gets to be God, or, at very least, to feel like God. That's not an overstatement. God is the source of all that is, the source of all gift. When we are in a position to give, we mediate divine power and we get to feel that power. Whenever we act like God we get to feel like God.

Yet, the irony is that our very gifts and strengths, if not given over with the proper attitude, can easily make others feel inferior. It is important to understand this so that we are more careful to not serve others in ways that demean them. It is not automatic, nor easy, to give a gift in a way that does not shame the recipient. Vincent de Paul's counsel highlights this caution.

But there's a second lesson here as well. Vincent de Paul meant this too as an antidote to self-pity. For anyone who is in a giving role (a parent, a minister, a teacher, a nurse, a social worker, an advocate for justice, a philanthropist, a politician) there is the temptation to fall into self-pity: "Look all I am doing! I do all this for others, but nobody is doing anything for me! I am so tired! Is there no end to this? Am I the only one who cares? This is asking more of me than is fair! I have my own problems that I should tend to!"

It is easy, especially when one is tired and frustrated by lack of support, to lose heart, to begin to feel sorry for oneself, and to eventually feel that we are being unfairly used by others, that we are being asked to give more than our share.

That is very common. Care-givers often feel victimized by those to whom they are giving of themselves. We've even coined some terms for this: "Compassion fatigue", "Compassion burnout". Not surprisingly, many good people resent the demand of the poor: the welfare system, the push by various groups for their rights, the pressure for more immigration, the drain that the sick put on the energy and money of our society, the cost of repairing the damage done by youthful vandals, and so on. The temptation is to give up and give in; give up on going the extra mile and give in to the temptation to resign and take care of ourselves.

And so Vincent de Paul's counsel should be told and retold: If we do not continue to serve the poor, despite our tiredness and self-pity, the poor will never find it in their hearts to forgive us. We need to remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and it is also easier.

Written by Father Ronald Rolheiser

OLPS Mission Outreach

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Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Tanjung Pinang Mission Outreach December 2006

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