(392) Time capsule

While going through some papers from my shelves, I came across a letter I wrote but did not send six years ago. That was around the time I had to pack up the entire house to relocate back to my home town. No, no one expected to receive that letter. One night I was reading some prayer update from missionaries from a small island in Indonesia, I presume the next morning I wrote the letter at the spur of the moment. Some how it was packed and escaped detection for almost eighty months. The same missionaries have moved on to the island of Borneo by now. It would not make any sense to send the letter now.

Somewhere in the letter I was relating my experience in recycling for mission. That particular night a well-to-do couple brought 45 beer cans and seven engine oil containers as well as a few huge collapsed carton boxes. Andy went to service his vintage Mercedes in the morning. As he remembered to collect his own empty engine oil container, he asked the mechanic if he could collect those containers he saw thrown right out side of the workshop. The mechanic replied in the affirmative. After he left the workshop he took his wife Dottie shopping. This time Dottie spotted a few carton boxes that looked clean. In order to fit those boxes into his boot, Andrew collapsed and folded them. After a light lunch, they went for a seven mile up and down hill run with the Harriers. Then the big group gathered to eat a well-earned dinner at the club. As usual, the President brought out cartons of beer. Andy and Dottie collected many beer cans.

In the letter I recorded that I started to collect recyclable materials in my neighbourhood starting from April 18 that year. I would walk with my children in the evening and pick up aluminium cans and mineral water bottles. After that I tell everyone who would listen what I was doing. Then quite a few families would collect stuff and deliver to my door step. Looking back, it was amazing that from April 18 to Dec 31 we managed to raise more than a thousand dollars for mission in a South East Asian country.

The next thought was : a few are called to go spread the good news in a foreign country, most are called to pray and to support financially those who went. Since I was a home-maker and did not have any monthly pay cheque, for that period of my life I found a creative way to raise fund. Now I could no longer do that as I live in a pigeon hole. Six years ago I lived in a five bedroom house with more land than build up area.

For a long time I haven't thought about the fellow recyclers I met in the recycling shop. Some of them are homeless. Others were retired and poor. A few went round on motor-cycles with two big bags precariously balanced on front and back. Many were on bicycles. A few walked and dragged bags behind them. According to the owner of the shop, most of the old men depend on the money they scavenged for their daily meals. That was why the recycling shop opened seven days a week. The only day they closed is on Chinese New Year first day. The Indonesian maid told me that her boss would hand out "Ang Pows" (Red packets with a small sum of cash inside) to those who come on the eve. That way, the really poor ones would not go hungry the next day.

These men were of all three races - Malay, Chinese and Indians. They are definitely an unreached group. The Malays and the Indians were surprisingly jovial and did not resent me going to recycle in my tiny borrowed car. The Chinese men would not even look me in the eyes, let alone to joke and laugh with me. That place was not a rural and poor area. It was just 200 Km from the nation's capitol. Until I frequent that shop to sell my collected stuff, I did not know there was such a big band of the aged that live on the rim of hunger. Jesus loves them, yes, each one of them, as much as you and me. Yet who can bridge the socio-economic gap to go and tell them that?