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Advent
One of the themes of this Advent season running up
to Christmas is to be more open to helping others. As
our approaching sense of joy and thanksgiving
increases with proximity to Christmas, most people
look for channels of generosity and service. So our
church is collecting money in order to bring some
gifts and goodwill to a children's home in a week or
so.
Inspired by this sentiment I did something I don't
normally do and don't like to do: I spent an afternoon
visiting with long term prisoners at Stanley Prison.
Most of the men are sentenced to life for murder; some
to somewhat shorter terms for drug offenses. As often
is the case when we do something we're not eager to
do, a winsome friend, the Rev. Tobias Brandner,
encouraged me to accompany him. So I did it.
Tobias is a weekly visitor to Stanley Prison where
along with a group of Chinese Christian volunteers he
conducts worship for a "gospel fellowship" of about 25
of these long term prisoners. The prisoners are
obviously well-educated since they all could read the
words from the song book and read out the bible
passages. Several spoke to me in English. I suppose
it's typical of Hong Kong with its high literacy rate
that many of the criminals are literate.
I spent most of my visiting time with international
prisoners: an Indian, two Philippinos, and a Colombian
who, alas, spoke neither English nor Cantonese. Since
I speak a bit of Spanish I was the first person with
whom he had had a real talk in many months.
There's nothing like spending two hours in a prison
to renew a sense of the limitations of life. Everyone
has limits, though, in general, the higher one's
income the less aware one is of these inevitable
limits. Talking with these believers in jail I was
poignantly reminded of how essential to them is the
one freedom they can enjoy despite the bars and walls:
freedom in Christ.
We all can use heightened awareness of that freedom
as Christmas approaches.
P.S. I'm glad that our church has given a small
gift of $HK2,000 from our end-of-year money to the
Hong Kong Christian Kun Sun Association to which
Tobias Brandner is seconded by his Basle Mission. Our
president, Jennifer Leung, wants CCHK to consider the
Association for a larger support in our l999
budget.
PPS Our member Nury Vitachi recently mentioned
Heifer Project China in his SCMP column and I received
a check for $HK4,000 made out to Heifer Project China
as a result.
Pastor's
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