Dr Tan first visited COSI in June this year with the Sunday School from his church, Grace Methodist. Since then, he has been making monthly visits to COSI, especially to help with the medical clinic for both COSI and the nearby villagers. We asked him what made him return so often, and he shared that after the first trip, he felt that he had to do something more for the children. With his compassion and love for the children, Dr Tan, in his unassuming manner, has been such an encouragement for the team.
When we first arrived at COSI, the children showed us much hospitality by running to the van and carrying our luggage to the rooms. We were rather surprised by this sweet gesture as they did not even know us yet. Throughout our 6 days there, this hospitality was demonstrated again and again.
Carol and Li Diang also shared with us the background of most of the children in COSI. Both of them are Singaporeans who have been with COSI for more than 10 years, and Li Diang had recently moved to the youth hostel about 11Km from COSI to be the in-charge for the older youths (aged 16 to 19) who are currently in high school. The children in COSI ranged from 6 to 15 years, and most are either orphans or had families who are unable to support them. Through funds provided by the Methodist Mission Society, COSI was able to provide them with food, shelter, education and most importantly, a place to know our Lord.
For the most parts of our stay in COSI, it was packed with activities such as English and craft classes, talks, games and so on. On hindsight, I hoped that we had more time to interact with the children and I believed most in the team shared these sentiments as well. I also got a chance to speak to two young ladies who had just returned to COSI, from the youth hostel, upon the completion of their high school eduction and are currently waiting for application to university. One aspires to be an accountant, and the other, a nurse. They are probably the ‘first-generation’ COSI children, and it is always a joy to see these ‘success cases’ on how COSI had made a difference in their lives. However, for every one of these cases, we know that there are many more in Cambodia who are deprived of an education.
Besides COSI, we also visited the Emmaus Women Centre (EWC), which is just next to COSI. EWC provides a one-year stay-in program for young women to learn one of these two skills, dress-making or hair and beauty. With this skill, the young women would be better equipped to earn a living in the city or back at their villages. For two mornings, the team got a chance to share with the EWC women. Irene led the devotion, on Prayer, for the first morning, and Linda Lee, on ‘The Sovereignty of God’, during the second. Irene and Gillian also gave cooking and baking lessons for the women in the afternoons. Though we did not spend as much time in EWC as we did in COSI, we hoped that the devotion sessions and cooking/baking lessons had benefited the women.
On our last night at COSI, Gillian, Linda Lau and Annie had shared on how they had initially wanted to go to COSI to bless the children, but had instead ended up being blessed manifold by the children. As quoted by Wilson, “we’ll never be happy with what we have if we are unhappy with what we don’t have”, and the COSI children had made us realised that. They also caused us to realise that worship is not about the musical instruments, or how well we sing, but the joy that radiates from the heart. It is this simplicity and purity that we hear in the children’s voices when they sing, despite the language barrier.
This rings true for the village children as well, who came for the Sunday morning session at COSI, while some of their parents worshipped at the village church. Maybe we are too sheltered in Singapore to realise that there are the poor among us. Yet, seeing them, can we really say that they are poor when they know and have the greatest gift of all – our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?
The COSI children saw us off as we boarded the van to leave for the airport, and told us to come back again. Some also gave hand-written notes and small momentoes to us to show their appreciation. I never knew these little gestures would bring so much joy to our hearts as well. As mentioned previously, we had gone wanting to do something for the children but in the end, it is them who had done so much for us. Guess we can do all the preparation we wanted, but it is God who has the final say.
