19/12: Went caroling around Klang. Bethany Chapel brought cheers to 2 old folks home, 1 nursing care center & 1 shelter home

After coming back from US, I had jet lag again. But thank God, I managed to recover by Saturday. Saw the email from someone in charge of youth ministry; practice supposed to start @ 8.15am in church. Got there 10 minutes later, but only a few were there. Guess it was a good day to sleep in :-)

After a good warm up of our vocals, we started caroling about 9.30am. Here's where we went (Picture from left to right):

Picture 1 & 2
This is an old folks home in Taman Sentosa. Quite a lot of residents here. They were happy to see us. One even sang loudly as if to welcome us. Started to drizzle when the gospel message was spoken. 

The guy from Port Klang Gospel Hall (PKGH) did a good job of delivering the message in Hokkien while we stood and listen (Picture 1). In Picture 2, you can see some of the residents. But the gentleman sporting a nice batik shirt at the center isn't. He's Uncle Kong Lam, my grandfather's comtemporary. At 91, he's still active and preached for the next 2 locations. Plus he remembers me too :-) Simply amazing...

Picture 3 & 4
This is the regular old folks home Bethany Chapel visits for caroling every year. It's located near the cemetery. Someone told me it's probably because land is cheaper. I feel kinda sad because old as they are, they deserve a better scenery and not be reminded of where they'll end up.

Some of the residents are lively as they recognize Uncle Kong Lam. It made sense because they attend a regular meeting in PKGH every Sunday evening. We sang our carols, 2 in Mandarin. Of course, since I don't understand Chinese, i just memorized the pronounciation by looking at the pinyin. That's the same for most of us. But we manage to sing well despite faking it :-) Gave the residents presents as we sang "We wish you a Merry Christmas".

Picture 5
Our next stop is the nursing care center. It has 2 floors of residents, so we had to split into 2 groups. We didn't sound that powerful but it would have to do. Uncle Kong Lam climbed upstairs and told his story. Since he's probably older than everyone in the center, he has every right to earn their respect. His life is interesting, with 6 generations of Christians in his family line. His message centered on how important Christ is to a person. How he hold fast to his faith is an encouragement to me. The host gave us drinks as refreshment.

Picture 6
Our last stop is a shelter home for women & girls. This is also a regular place for caroling. It is always the last stop because we spend more time with the children. Some of them attend the youth meetings in the church.

There were less people this year. I found out that's because the girls have to leave the place when they reach 18. I guess there were many Form 5 students last year. We had a fun time with them. After singing carols, there were 2 activities: "Bananas of the world, unite!" and passing the box. First was singing and acting like a banana. There were a total of 5 moves, which are peel, shake, dance, chop and mash. It was hilarious!

The other activity was passing a box to the next person until the music stops. The person with the box must take a piece of paper from it & do what it said. Pretty interesting. The message was given by a youth & talks about remembering Jesus, the Son of God as the best Christmas gift to mankind.

Picture 7 & 8
It was after 1pm when we left the shelter home. Had lunch at Burger King, Bukit Tinggi with the carolers. I enjoyed the fellowship. But the grilled chicken buger I ate wasn't what I expected. Maybe I'm spoilt by US burgers! :-D I had grape juice as drink.

That's about it for caroling. Of course, I did other stuff too, like got my haircut and sleeping like a log. But those aren't interesting stuff to write about :-)

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Xander Harris

Xander Harris


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