Thank You Dong Hee Kim for passing this duty to me. Hello this is HyungJu Jeon, current Junior in Tianjin International School. I have two days left before I leave back to Tianjin, China where I originally come from. Experiences in Philippines trip were different to my expectations. Not only it had different weather but also the environment here is unlike from China. Since Philippines are considered unsafe area to be, and Manila, where I am currently staying for the service trip, is one of the capital cities of Human Trafficking my family, and friends warned me to be extra careful where I go. Although the environment around here is not clean, interacting with the Filipinos was better than what I have been expecting.
First of all, February 8th, which is today, we had the opportunity to feed the Filipino people. When some of the students from ISC were giving out foods to the people I had to give stickers to the children. While I was handing out stickers to them I was surprised by some of the kids that came. When I gave stickers to the kids some of them would give their siblings or their friends first rather than getting one for themselves. Since it is very rare for the children to see stickers at the place where they live, I expected them to be gluttonous and egocentric. However, the incident proved me that the mind-set that I had was wrong and they still can share their possessions even though they are poor. I was very touched about the fact and I have learnt myself more about Love and serving others rather than my own benefits.
Furthermore, we also visited a PWD (People with Disabilities) community to serve them. We prepared skits, worship songs, and foods for them. Even though it seemed that the people couldn’t understand the skits I enjoyed presenting our skits and spreading the word of God. Previously, Ms. Neumann, one of my team leaders, told me the definition of Love. She said, “Love actually means Jesus Christ” and since I am not a Christian yet, learning more about Christianity and God is helping me to finish the definition of Love that I have been missing. Moreover, I was feeling both touched and bad for the disabled people. We had a time where we helped them coloring or played games with them, and sometimes when I just did something really small for them they would give me a big smile back. At that moment they astonished me that in order to show love or help others it does not necessarily have to be something huge. As time passed, I learnt more about serving others and loving others and this Philippines trip supported me a lot on sharing love to others that are in need.
First of all, February 8th, which is today, we had the opportunity to feed the Filipino people. When some of the students from ISC were giving out foods to the people I had to give stickers to the children. While I was handing out stickers to them I was surprised by some of the kids that came. When I gave stickers to the kids some of them would give their siblings or their friends first rather than getting one for themselves. Since it is very rare for the children to see stickers at the place where they live, I expected them to be gluttonous and egocentric. However, the incident proved me that the mind-set that I had was wrong and they still can share their possessions even though they are poor. I was very touched about the fact and I have learnt myself more about Love and serving others rather than my own benefits.
Furthermore, we also visited a PWD (People with Disabilities) community to serve them. We prepared skits, worship songs, and foods for them. Even though it seemed that the people couldn’t understand the skits I enjoyed presenting our skits and spreading the word of God. Previously, Ms. Neumann, one of my team leaders, told me the definition of Love. She said, “Love actually means Jesus Christ” and since I am not a Christian yet, learning more about Christianity and God is helping me to finish the definition of Love that I have been missing. Moreover, I was feeling both touched and bad for the disabled people. We had a time where we helped them coloring or played games with them, and sometimes when I just did something really small for them they would give me a big smile back. At that moment they astonished me that in order to show love or help others it does not necessarily have to be something huge. As time passed, I learnt more about serving others and loving others and this Philippines trip supported me a lot on sharing love to others that are in need.