Touching Our Fears and Hopes – An Advent Reflection

December 1^st, I was to facilitate the weekly meeting with the women and staff. Somehow, I woke up in very early in the morning to plan on the activity and remembered it was World AIDS Day, so I planned the activity focused on HIV-AIDS. Towards noon, Fr. Larry Barnett, a Columban priest friend, paid us a surprise visit and brought a huge box of freshly picked persimmons from the mountains where he worked with the Taiwan Taya Tribe. He joined us for lunch and the women just loved him talking in Taiwanese with them.

At the meeting, we had a big group of 12 women including the staff. Surprisingly, most of them did not remember December 1^st as World AIDS Day. After introducing the theme, we watched a DVD, “Hug With Love”, an HIV-AIDS documentary produced by the Department of Health. It was a well presented documentary of HIV-AIDS in Taiwan and it was all in Chinese, interviewing local person affected with HIV-AIDS. The group was so focused on the presentation however the seriousness of the issue was evident to the silence afterwards. Afterwards, I asked everyone to make an AIDS ribbon, and each light a candle to pray for someone they know who are suffering of the disease or supporting and advocating the HIV-AIDS pandemic. Each one has a choice to put on the ribbon or lay them around the Advent Wreath made of fresh pine leaves and branches, to signify our solidarity in our own FEARS and the fears of those who have AIDS, to connect our own HOPE with those who are dying of AIDS. After everyone lighted her candle, we all gathered around and formed a circle hug acknowledging each others’ presence and support. This was followed by each of the women sharing how their week at the center was like.

Through our gestures and silence, touching the meaning of Advent with our fears and hopes as those suffering from HIV-AIDS made me realized the depth and meaning of Advent. For the most of the women, they may not know fully what Advent is, but they understood that it is about hoping. Finding within themselves the seed of hope and change, in the midst of their struggle to rebuild their lives, to form friendships with one another and eventually, in their own phase find their rebirth. It is in these moments, Jesus’ birth find its meaning to those whose hearts are changed.

A Creative and Wise Giving - Learning from our Buddhist Friends

This morning, I drove the car to pick up our weekly vegetable donations. When I arrived, it was a little early and the vegetables were not ready. Mrs. Liao [陳瑺玲] kept on apologizing and told me she is waiting for her husband, Mr. Liao［廖學正］. He said he forgot to prepare our vegetable because today there were about three organizations who also came to get vegetable donations. Not too long, Mr. Liao came, hurrying and apologizing that he was not ready with the vegetables. He started to pick up different kinds of vegetables, weighed and listed them. As I was waiting, me and Mrs. Liao helped bagged the vegetables. When he finished, I had four huge bags filled with different vegetables to take back to the center. While waiting, I told Mr. Liao that I am very grateful for the help they give us.
Mr. and Mrs. Liao are very devout Buddhists and were introduced to us by Mr. Wu [吳平常]。They have been donating fresh vegetables to us for more than four years now.
I asked if I could take a photo of both of them and they happily said yes. Mr. Liao explained to me that they are a small group of individuals who want to help homeless people by contributing a small amount of money to buy vegetables for donation. He showed me the names of the contributors. I was so impressed how they thought of contributing this way. The donors put together money and give it to Mr. &Mrs. Liao to give the equivalent vegetables to the organizations helping homeless people. They are not only helping the homeless but also helping Mr. and Mrs. Liao to continue with their small business by giving them regular sales. The donated vegetables are weighed and listed for record and they report the donation to the original money donors. What a wise way of giving to the society. Helping the homeless and the small business people in a very responsible way.

Creating A Safe Space for Healing and Reconciliation

Poverty and homelessness among women and men is a global issue we all are facing, here in Taiwan and in our respective countries. Last year, the 10% rise on the number of domestic violence in Taiwan households reflects the increasing number of women and children who are seeking shelter. (The China Post, June 9, 2009). Also in 2009, violence and difficult family situation accounts for 91% of the causes of homelessness among the clients at Good Samaritan Women Center. High rate of unemployment for women who are over 40s and low skilled put them in the high risk of being homeless.

Since 2003, the women center offers a safe space for street and homeless women through its day shelter and temporary residency program for free. However, Good Samaritan Women Center works of mercy do not stop there, the organization has been in the forefront since the beginning in its advocacy for the rights of homeless people and its service provider organizations. Networking with other homeless service provider, the Samaritan Center organizes annual symposium on homelessness lobbying for the establishment of National Taiwan Homeless Services Act. The organization also advocates on the issue of women’s rights especially in the social welfare system. Three times a year the center organizes seminars on current issues affecting women.

Most days, a woman comes by herself at the center, seeking a place to live. Some women are referred to by domestic abuse center, hospital, police stations and local government social welfare service. Each day, a number of street women come asking for clothing, hot meals, warm shower, wash their laundry or just to stop by and be listened to, rest and watch television. At the Samaritan Center they have a home where they can laugh, talk, cry and tell their stories. It provides shelter for the street women from the hot sun and bitter cold winter months. Here they have home, restful and away from the streets and measuring eyes of the public.



The works of Good Samaritan Center to help individual women rebuild their lives need to expand for it to serve women more effectively. Currently, the women center rents three floors of an apartment, allowing 10-12 women to live in a given period. As more women come back to visit, the place is now very limited and there is not enough space to interact. This also limits extending temporary residency period for any women who needs more time to find work and rebuild her life.

Our hope is to buy a newly built house around the vicinity of Taichung City, where transportation is an easy access. We would like to start an eco-friendly women center which will be a model organization in Taichung City. In addition to this, we need to build our capital fund to increase our financial security to make sure that we continue delivering basic services to homeless women who come to our door. We thank you for your help.

Lim Sim Ek (A Friend and Teacher - Che Guang Buddhist Library

Old man by the willow tree,

You rested your back on the cold bench,

Your face, lined with dark creases.

You told the night quietly your struggles.

Its soft breeze touched your forehead and kissed you with swift comfort.

Thus momentarily, the tired body finds rest.

It was heaven for you.

You avoided my smile, you fear I will know who you really are.

I wanted to ask you, but I'd rather not.

I wanted to ask you, how is life?

Does it really matter?

I was deep into these questions,

Suddenly you interrupted my thoughts,

You chuckled and gave me a welcoming smile!

Homelessnes

A Pastoral Review

The familiarity of the course - Spirituality, Sexuality and the Body, ignited some precious and difficult memories that have touched my life. As I engaged myself with the materials and shared experiences of my teachers and classmates, I found myself haggling with‘homelessness’, maybe because of my life as a missioner and because of the fact that I worked with homeless people. Reflecting on the course materials, the term homelessness puts on a new quest and is thirsting for understanding in the light of intimacy or the lack of it in a human person…


“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” a quote Ferder and Heagle borrowed from The Beatles began their Chapter 8: Longing for Intimacy. “Is there enough love?” the authors quoted young woman who cannot reconcile her experience of intimacy and love in her family and what she witness around her. And how can we not have this kind of awareness and further ask questions, like: “Is there enough love in my life to keep me going from day to day? Is there enough connection so that I don’t feel isolated and alone? Is there enough understanding, enough compassion to find meaning? How can I heal from the betrayals of love and the collapse of trust? [Ferder and Heagle p. 45]. And how can we not feel “not being at home” with what is going on around our lives. In working with women and men who have found refuge in the streets, the primary issue of homelessness, is not only much that of a lack of physical home but the aloneness and isolation from their “home’, whether this home is the self, family and friends and the society. The term ‘disaffiliation’ of a person maybe applicable to understand this particular dehumanizing experience of homelessness. This is the psychological homelessness. Over prolonged period of being in this situation this feeling of being alive and belongingness dies. The dignity and hunger for living slowly vanishes into the dirt and invisibility that one feels. This spark in the human capacity for living and authentic intimacy needs to be nurtured once more and “be brought home again”.

The helping task required of us staff and volunteers at Good Samaritan Women Center entail the intimate compassion as that of the Good Samaritan in the story.

Being present and facilitate trust and safe environment is our immediate response just as food, shower and clothing restore the physical well-being of some of our friends. And as for me, is an exercise of trust to myself that I can love the stranger and to test my patience when it is being stretched. Our service requires ‘side by side intimacy’ and ‘back to back intimacy’ [p. 151-153]. It is important to become a friend and the assurance of being with them until one find themselves ready to be in relationship. It is the assurance of being with them in the unfolding task of reclaiming one’s ability to be in relationship. It is a journey of celebrating togetherness in being both blessed and broken.


Coming and going by bus to the class, I am both thankful and sad. Thankful to be experiencing a beautiful city of Chicago with manicured public lawns and well-kept renaissance façade of buildings and many beautiful people around me. And sad, when my bus at certain stops gave me chance ‘to see’ our sisters and brothers in the street, still curling in the morning cold in places where they found homage of the night.

In Chapter 31, the authors talked about shaping a theology of compassion. They suggest that the process of encouraging, healing and ministering to the community in the practice of Gospel vision is called pastoral theology. “Pastoral Ministry begins by accepting people where they are and listening respectfully to their stories, just as Jesus and the woman at the well…It is a presence to be offered. The first task is to offer a safe setting.” [Ferder & Heagle, p. 213]

I suggest for myself and for my reflection that the Spirituality of Intimacy and Sexuality reclaimed from the Gospel/Jesus example, is the basis for Pastoral Theology. The awareness of such, evokes us ‘to see’ and ‘to act’ and humbly return to ourselves, experiencing God’s love.


June 8, 2007
Tender Fires: The Spiritual Promise of Sexuality by Fran Ferder and John Heagle. Crossroad Publishing Co., New York, 2002


for Professors Jim and Evelyn Whitehead

The Practice of Compassion in Taiwan

So many foreign visitors in Taiwan are in awe of their experience of kindness and hospitality of the people. As a missioner living in Taiwan for 12 years now, here are some examples of this compassion…

A client’s story: She was sleeping for three days in the park. It was pouring rain, suddenly a young woman came to give her a new umbrella and some bread. Another woman helped her make some money for food, by letting her help distribute ad materials from the woman’s work. That was how she endured living for two months in the park.

I remembered when my friends and I were starting to help homeless men and women, we distribute box lunches openly in one of the parks. Several times, after we finished distributing food, there were individuals who would come up to us and donate money for the next food distribution. Some fruit vendors also began to bring their fruits for us to distribute to the homeless people for free.

One day, a woman came did not even want us to let us know her name dropped off a huge bag of vegetable in front of the center. She still comes occasionally.

A Buddhist friend helped the women center find a sponsor from the market. This family sells fresh vegetables and fruits. They give us all kinds of fresh vegetables every week, enough for our weekly consumption at the women center. They do not give us old vegetables.

When Good Samaritan Center started in 2003, we could not afford to buy new furniture and fixtures. Words spread and so many people cleaned up their homes and brought all kinds of stuff that we can use at the center. These goods such as water heaters, blankets, tables, chairs, among many things, were still good and usable.

A woman neighbor who lives next door to the women center, one day came to me while I was watering the plants in front of the center. She said, “Sister, I will give you two baby plants I planted for you. One day you told me you liked this flower very much.” It was a red hibiscus plants. I almost cried when I looked at her, she is not even a Christian, she barely knew me and yet she took so much effort to give me this gift. Now, I have the plants in my apartment’s little garden --- blooming!

Learning the Arts of Communication

Many of the clients who came to the center these past two years are homeless women who left their families because of difficult family relationships, many have experienced domestic violence. Last year alone, 91% of the cause of homelessness is due to family problems. To address this situation we planned to hold series of seminars that will address this issue. On July 24th, we invited a professional family counselor from Taichung County Center for Family Education, Prof. Yao Xiu Ching (姚秀情) to give us a workshop on Effective Human Communications. Seventy participants from different organizations signed up to attend the workshop. They told us that this theme is vital to their work and ministry. Prof. Yao gave an excellent presentation on the arts of communications. The atmosphere of the day was very animated and participative. She gave us basic exercises to illustrate different ways of communicating and offered techniques on how to develop good bargaining skills. She used different cartoons and life examples to illustrate how human beings communicate. She had every one of us try is to talk with a partner in three different positions: one standing, other sitting; talking back to back and talking facing each other. Professor Yao also helped us practiced talking and listening to each other, alternately. We were able to observe ways and become aware how the other person reacts to our own voice, tone and expressions. The key point in her talk is about self-preservation. In communicating, all human beings desire three things: to love and be loved, to be affirmed and to be listened. Our level of communicating depends on how much we protect these three and how safe we feel to go deep.