Life is either a daring adventure or nothing

I am a SHANGHAINESE!!!!

EeJay is a Shanghainese??? Guess this must be the greatest coverup which most people do not know about me. Actually my grandfather came to Singapore from Shanghai, and that makes my roots stem all the way back to this magnificent place! Thus this Shanghai Summer Camp trip has extra meaning to me apart from the service learning and community service. I am actually coming back to the land where my ancestors came from.. coming back to my roots! =)

Through this summer camp together with the shanghai youths, we learnt alot about the significance of service-learning, the importance of reflection coupled with experience and how we can meet the needs of the community and make a difference there. And of course we went through Project SMILE where we picked up simple magic tricks to help us engage the heartlanders in our community service work!

Something which I caught while learning the magic tricks was that actually all the focus is not on ourselves, neither on the trick, but rather on the people! When I first master one of the tricks, I was so happy and proud of myself for this accomplishment. As I went on further to perfect the art of the trick, the trainers were teaching us how to fine tune the little details, coming up with a story line together with the trick and every seemingly minor particulars became so so important! I asked myself, "What's all this hassle for? Why not just perfect the trick, perform it and amaze everyone! That would be great right?"

As I continue to ponder, it dawned upon me that actually I need to have the big picture in mind. To perfect the trick itself is easy.. all it takes is just repeated practice. But the key focus is not on perfecting the trick.. but rather engaging the crowd and audience watching you perform the tricks! The movements of our hands in manoevering the tricks, the storyline we come up with, our eye contact with the crowd...etc All these are done for the people, to engage them and not for ourselves!

Parallel this with what we learnt in community service and service-learning... the acts of kindness and service that we do; going the extra mile for people that we don't know very well; lending forth a helping hand without expecting anything in return... what are all these done for? I believe these are done really for the people and not for personal satisfaction. If in the journey of blessing others and we have the mentality of seeking affirmations from people, personal glory or satisfaction and wanting to feel good ourselves, we would have missed out on the really heart attitude of being a blessing to the people around us.

The Bible has this very famous quote, "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' " - Acts 20:35.

I went to Shanghai thinking and hoping to learn about service learning, magic tricks, getting to know more about the Shanghai culture. In the little ways that I had given, I received so much more in return. When paths cross, lives change... the times of sharing and friendship made with the shanghai youths have tremendously blessed my heart... espacially when I hear them sharing their thanksgivings and appreciations. The reflection about service learning also gave me new revelations about serving and blessing people around me.

Indeed... When we truly serve, then will we truly Love... =)