dropzone
When I was working with Scripture Union, we always joked about explaining our ministry/work to our children. I have no children at that time, but still find the explaining difficult to my family members. The older colleagues who have schooling children were the worst ‘hit’. Whenever a teacher ask for a composition about their father’s occupation, the kids would panic. How do you explain what a staffworker is? What organization did you say? What kind of union? What sort of membership do the union offer? What do you mean he encourages Christians to read the Bible? Is he a book seller? Not really? Is he a pastor then? Not really again? Oh, he teaches children in church and at camps… I see… ok, so he’s a teacher. Huh, what do you mean sometimes he gets volunteers to teach? And he’s not really a real teacher…???
I can go on but I think you get the point.
I don’t know what I’ll tell Mynn and Zjern when my time comes. Right now, they only know that Papa’s office has a drumset they can play with.
I’ve written an article about my work (place) for the next issue of Mustard Seed. Thought I’d just post it here, unedited. It’s not exhaustive of course. And I only wrote from one angle. Hopefully it sketches a rough picture of what I do. Mustard Seed is Bangsar Lutheran Church’s in-house mag. It’s also the church my family and I have been attending for the past 6 years or so.
Here’s the article:
Introducing DropZone
I remember when I was a teenager, I used to hangout a lot with my friends. Our conversation subject ranged from mathematical formulas to girls. Sometimes we talked about what we hope to do after leaving school, but most of the time we weren’t sure whether our dreams would come true after all.
We seldom talk about our families. Maybe it’s a guy thing. Maybe our family background was so varied and the problems so attached to particular individuals that we saw little point of talking about them. Then, there were expectations laid out from the start of course, but we often wondered whether there is more to life than doing well in studies, get a respected job with good pay, get married and perhaps produce a couple of offspring in the process.
I often wondered how I survived this phase of my life. Growing up as a teenager is hard work because one is no longer a child but also not yet fully an adult. It’s simultaneously an exciting and confusing time of transition; intertwined together in a complex web of relationships. It is a sad fact that some didn’t survive adulthood. As I recall, one factor that contributed positively towards my growth as a person was the care of other older, mature adults. While my parents modelled for me many exemplary qualities, somehow I still searched elsewhere for role models.
And while times have since changed, certain things remained true. Today, young people are growing up in a new, shifting, and complicated world. Yet young people often long for mentors who possess moral assurance, who will accept and respect them, and who can point them toward purpose and significance as they navigate through the complex maze of life.
For these and other reasons Shelter’s youth community centre, DropZone, hope to play a constructive and complementary role in building up the youths in the neighbourhood. DropZone takes after the concept of a drop-in centre that runs youth related activities in the hope that it becomes a healthy hangout alternative that focuses on the personal development of youth. By intentionally infusing positive influences through activities, friendship, mentoring, counselling, and indirectly through the staff’s lifestyle, DropZone hope to provide the youths with tools to cope with personal issues, the challenges and frustrations of home and school, and of society in general. And of course, beyond this, we also hope that they will come to know and experience the grace of God in their lives, if not only glimpses of it.
Most of DropZone members lived nearby or at one of the tamans along Jalan Kelang Lama. Almost 95% are Malay or Indian. About 20 youths drop-in the centre on a normal day, though recent weeks saw an increase in numbers between 40-60, with up to 30 youths at any one time. If you have any experience working with youths before you could perhaps identify with the challenges I face daily. Although all the youths understand English, most of the time I converse with them in Bahasa. One of my initial challenge was updating to current Bahasa jargons. For instance, kantoi is often preferred to mati, meaning die, died or dead—depending on the tense. Its semantic range also extends to defeated, lost or found guilty.
Obviously, DropZone cannot achieve its objectives without the support and practical help from individuals and groups—it will sure to kantoi. The recent partnership with BLC in the mini-concert event was the first time DropZone worked with a church in DropZone events. Of course, we have had volunteers from churches but never from a church as a whole. So this will certainly go into DropZone’s records. We hope this will be a meaningful start to more partnership opportunities in the future.
At DropZone, we believe that behind every face there is a story, and every person is a story in progress. We want to hear their stories, and to join them in making good stories in their lives.
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