Episode Transcript
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I am Sr Teresa Lau.
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For my sixty years of experience in community life,
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I found challenging to start with,
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because I start in an international formation
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and there were ten of us in my group.
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And we have different people from Thailand,
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Philippines, Hong Kong and other places.
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And I learned how to adjust to each other.
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First for me, was a language
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because I didn't speak English much
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so it was an effort.
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The next challenge is that we have the lessons,
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we have to recite certain parts of the scripture, which was a big thing for me.
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But apart from the challenges,
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I think there's a lot of joy in the community
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because we love, we share, each other's
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experiences because a lot of us have been working
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and some of them have been just finishing their study.
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And there was so much joy throughout the world
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and all through my sixty years I worked in about
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and I live in about five different communities,
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a different number, the highest number I live
was about twenty of us in the community,
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and the lowest one was about five.
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So there was a big adjustment
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but there's one thing that is in common was
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we learn to love each other, share with each other's joy
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and support each other,
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because some of us find it difficult to talk
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because of the personal differences
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and language was another one.
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But it's always
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joy out of that, even with different language skill
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and the experience was
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once the sister came home and said,
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'I ate a computer.'
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So we asked,
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'what do you mean by you ate a computer?'
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And we all laughed because she said, 'I ate cucumber today.'
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So that was a joy that we shared.
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And then there's among many other things like that.
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But also we have shared the worries,
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the work that we work together,
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the studies that we share
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and the formation that we receive.
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Of course in a community, we also share the housework,
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we pray together, because in prayer we join in union not only
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the local community that I live but also the
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other communities in the district and in the whole congregation.
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So we share each other's prayer, joy,
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for example if a sister passes away in other countries
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they send us a notice, we pray for them.
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So that great support that you have in the community
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which I do treasure very much.
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And for us we also have time to be silent,
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that means to respect each other's place
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and union with God during prayer, recreation, study.
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It is a school of loving and learning
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and which I do appreciate very much
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and I thank God for this.
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So no community is perfect on this Earth.
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And be all the challenges and graces,
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a community is a place that we learn to love, to grow,
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to accept each other.
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A community member is like
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a jigsaw puzzle,
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complimentary to each other,
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no piece of the jigsaw puzzle
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is less important or more important,
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they complement each other
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to make the beautiful picture of God's service.
