Monday, March 26, 2007

Showers of Blessings 【恩雨之聲】 Walkathon in 天水圍

Here are some of the walkers who participated in the walkathon last Saturday. We started from a church in TinShuiWai South, walked along the “Stinking River” (according to a local student), crossed into TinShuiWai North, walked past the entrance to the Wetlands Park, and ended at a primary school. It rained before the walk, and dark clouds threatened briefly, but in the end God kept the rain from us.

Along the way, we saw mothers and their children picking up cardboard boxes to be exchanged for money and men playing Chinese chess or gambling with cards. Don't you think there is something odd about this picture? To be fair, we also saw a man cutting another men’s hair, and men and women singing together. There were also a few South Asian children playing outside a Pakistani community center. Quite a few children came looking at our balloons longingly, and smiled broadly when we gave them out. Children who don’t have a lot, it seems, can be easily entertained with simple pleasures. The more they have, on the other hand, the harder they are to please.


As we concluded our walk at the primary school, the evangelistic meeting started. The main event was a short movie about and personal sharing from a young man who failed all subjects in his school certificate examination after form 5. He came back to the church for help, made up his mind to change, eventually got to university, became a teacher, and received an award as an Outstanding Young Person a few years ago. Now he goes about telling young people there is hope in life. It was very well received by the several hundred mostly young people in the audience.

We concluded the day eating our dinner boxes in a small roadside park. It was an exhausting day, but we all came home feeling it was a wonderful experience.

Further information can be obtained from the SOBEM web site at www.sobem.org.hk . The 【恩雨之聲】 programs are real life testimonies as told directly by the persons involved, not re-enactments or dramatizations by actors. They are normally broadcasted on Sunday evenings at 11 PM on Asia TV, Local channel 亞視本港台.

2 comments:

tabbycat said...

Glad you had a good walk. That poor dog looks like it's just about to fold up and die from exhaustion :-P

StephenC said...

You are right. That dog was 8 years old. It was panting all the time, and labored to jump up the 5 inch curb. After several hundred meters, someone took pity on it and carried it all the way. At one point, I saw someone holding in like a baby. It seemed quite contented. And it should.