Pastoral Letters

Serving Our Community

August 21, 2016 Author:Elder Liu Kerh Li
We are happy to announce that TOLCC has finally started our community based National kidsREAD service on the last Saturday of July!  As I shared earlier, we had been planning to support this reading programme for some time.  On that day, 13 of TOLCC brothers and sisters made a beeline to Bukit Batok East Zone 3 Residents’ Community (RC) to assist in the kidsREAD programme.  Elder Chin Tian first introduced all of us to the children participants.  Sister Katherine’s followed with a lively rendition of children songs accompanied with Pastor Andrew on guitar.  This warm up activity helped to get the children’s attention and built some rapport with them.  From there, Deacon Lawrence took over the baton and enthralled the children with his reading of “Give Me a Hug” (an illustrated storybook based on the true story of a limbless Australian motivational speaker) by Nick Vujicic.  To highlight how well the children were listening, the questions Deacon Lawrence cleverly interspersed during the reading were all answered promptly by the children.  After the story telling, the children had their hands on designing their own personalised nametags with heart-shaped cards prepared by Sister Jane.  We then concluded the session with our “See you” song.  We were all heartened to have the opportunity to engage these obedient and lively kids. 

Thank God for guiding us.  This was a successful start to this community service.  Hence, we will be conducting the kidsREAD programme regularly on the 4th Saturday of every month.  We will do storytelling to the kids and guide them in hands-on craftwork and/ or other relevant activities to instill in them a reading habit.

Actually, kidsREAD has been in existence at this RC for quite awhile and every reading session attracts approximately 10-20 children from this neighbourhood.  The National Library Board (NLB) and the RC provide the books and other resources to support the programme.  What the programme needs now is volunteer readers.  Thank God for leading TOLCC to kidsREAD just when we were still thinking of how to outreach to our community.  Indeed, TOLCC does have the right people – parents, educationists, and professional teachers – who have the ability to effectively engage the children.  The last session proved this point.  Our brothers and sisters worked in tandem, in accordance to their individual strengths, to plan and execute the reading session.  This resulted in the participants’ total immersion and enjoyment of the session.  The RC representatives were very impressed with the organisation and impact of our session and found it very engaging for the participants.

Personally, I find it refreshing to volunteer for the kidsREAD programme with our church members.  We will all be clad in TOLCC’s shirt in this service and are honoured to represent our church to care and serve the community through the reading session.  We are hopeful that one day this service will help to move the community towards salvation.  On another note, for a person who had not volunteered in community service before, this session had eliminated the awkwardness of being in a new environment and the inertia of volunteering as I was with my church brothers and sisters.  I was able to dive into serving almost immediately and it adds to joyous fellowship time we have together.

TOLCC is committed to kidsREAD on an ongoing basis and we will need 5-6 members per session for storytelling, singing, and handicraft.  If you are available on Saturday 10.30 am to 11.30 am, do join us.  Last but not least, we are in the midst of discussion with the relevant communities for the 3rd age and shall update all when it is at a more concrete stage.