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Visitors to the Sabah Goducate Learning Centers

I heard one of the most beautiful lines for the day. A new friend, after visiting a Goducate Center asked over lunch, ”Let’s get you the stationery that you need later.”

I have always had reservations about taking in visitors to our centers. One, they could be too fuzzy and might just waste our time. Second, they could be bored people needing a short change of scenery and wanted to see tourist’s spots instead. Three, sure they could be touched by the plight of the kids, buy them some stuff to help but really more to make themselves feel good. After they go back to where they come from, they will all forget about us.

But not this team. When we were limited by the vehicles that we had, they squeezed in-and how squeezed in-leaves me shaking my head and smiling each time I remember it. My friend who owns the car told me later he was watching the tires each time saying to himself, “don’t burst, don’t make problems now, please, please…”

The genuine interest to know and somehow understand why we are doing this is written all over and we could feel it. And they are easy to please. Simple, rustic food makes them relax-it was contagious!

I look at our kampong friends, I share their pride. They were honored that guests from a different land stepped on their soil, much more inside their humble dwellings.

To our guests it could just be one short, simple visit. To the kampong children it’s different. It’s like seeing another world. A tiny seed bursting in their minds popping out many questions. Where did they come from…how to get there….they liked my song…. Why are they so happy….why they smile always….

Visiting is like reading a book. It opens up a different world. When it was time to buy stationeries, my friend was joined by two other friends. Our children got the pencils and crayons and exercise notebooks. And we got our sunblocks.

We were blessed. They were our first visitors. I have a feeling they will not forget.

to be continued

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The poor children at the Sabah Goducate Learning Center

Three hundred and ten children! Where did they all come from? Good question. How did they find their way to the Goducate Learning Center? Better question.

I was sitting on one of the front row of chairs reserved for our special visitors that morning. This is the year’s school opening and the nine classes are giving presentations – yes, nine classes! Each class wanted to present something. Can’t blame them. It was the only time for parents to see their children performing on our simple stage. And that day, it was not just a performance. Their children are singing, reading, dancing before Singaporean audience!

As all eyes are on the children on stage, I watched the parents sitting behind us. In their faces I read, it does not really matter that they do not fully understand the English songs. What matters is that their kids understood. Their kids are speaking, writing, reading and singing it. Their applause were thunderous. Every parent has the right to be very proud. The bondage of illiteracy has been broken and for most of them, this breakthrough came after the fourth and third generation.

I look at the kids. The tears come flooding again. They are so different than the last time I first saw them. They know now how to line up. Most of them are very comfortable performing on stage. Even the tiny new ones would stop sniffling and join heartily once the music starts. I love it when they converse with me. I love it when I see excitement and hope in their eyes.

I remember their stories. And I am grateful for the opportunity that came our way. Our kids will have a chance in life. A chance to rise above the oppressing circumstances of poverty, hard core poverty.

I glanced at my friend seated a couple of seats away from me. What was in her heart was written all over her face. And the tears just keep on coming.

How do kids find their way to a Goducate Learning Center? For as long as there are people like my friend who realizes how privileged she is and her kids because life is kinder to them. And how privileged she is to have the chance to change a child’s circumstance. And how she can take part in giving not only one child a future but a community of children a future, one after another.

The visitors left that day. But the singing, reading, writing, dancing continues each day. And how beautiful that is.

to be continued

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Sabah volunteer teachers must first be purveyor of dreams

During our meeting with the Sabah volunteer teachers, I shared with them the importance of dreaming big. These people had been so down-trodden by their circumstances, so stuck in their little villages and so busy just surviving that they had given up hope of ever getting out of their miserable situation. Basically, they were content just to survive. But Goducate believes that they were created for more than mere survival. Goducate believes that every person should be given the opportunity to fulfil his potential.

Over a dozen people from Singapore had come on this trip to visit the Goducate learning centers. The teachers had the chance to meet these Singaporeans. So I decided to share with our teachers some of the real life stories of these Singaporeans.

I told the teachers about a lady in our group from Singapore – whom they had all seen – how that she herself was unable to attend school when she was a little girl because her parents were too poor. I told them how she cried and cried until a relative of hers took pity on her and financed her schooling. She graduated as a pharmacist, married a doctor, became head of a large health-care company and is now chairman of another health-care company. Today, this dear lady is now one of the most committed supporters of Goducate – helping children to get the chance that she had! As I told the story, I could hear sniffles all around the room and I could see the teachers wiping their tears. One of the teachers who was sitting just by me with a little child in her hand had to get up and run away from the group because she couldn’t hold back her emotions! This young mum has eight children.

I told the group about another one in the Singaporean group who was a kampong boy who was now a successful doctor who started one of Singapore’s largest managed health-care organizations. I told them how he showed little promise in his early days but worked hard to overcome every obstacle to become a success. I told them how he too was now the major supporter of Goducate and was helping hundreds of poor children to fulfil their God-given potential. By now everyone was choking with emotion – including the narrator!

I ended by encouraging the teachers to dream BIG and to help the children to dream BIG. I reminded them that the greatest poverty was not the lack of money but the lack of hope.

Then I turned to my interpreter – Miss D, a teenager who had never had the opportunity to go to school until we taught her to read and write just over a year ago – and asked her what her dream was and she immediately replied “To be lawyer!” Then I asked another teenager. Miss L, who had also learned to read and write through our phonics program and was now an assistant teacher, and she readily replied “To be a businesswomen!”

Every child is created by God and created in His image. Therefore, every child has an unlimited potential. Goducate believes this!

Goducate wants to help poor Asians help themselves – and the first thing we must share with them is that with God there is hope! Every Goducate volunteer teacher must spread this message!