Endoh’s Dungeon

As the sermon for forgiveness was delivered this morning in church, Reverend Eugene suggested an action plan for giving and receiving forgiveness - the SPA treatment. Forgive me, because my attention strayed and I found myself trying to apply the SPA treatment to charity causes too.

Anyone who visits Faith Community Baptist Church (FCBC) will often see a huge slogan everywhere. It reads “Year of Victory” and nothing more can be as appropriate as that. This year, TOUCH Community Services won the Outstanding Non-profit Organisation Award which recognizes the best practices in volunteers & donors management, inclusive of fundraising practices. Just in case anyone is beginning to wonder what’s the relation between FCBC and TOUCH… well, it’s all the works and vision of one man’s devotion to God - Apostle Lawrence Khong.

How did the SPA treatment for forgiveness come into the picture then?

In the series of sermons on forgiveness, Reverend Eugene used the SPA treatment as a very simple action plan (or guide) in achieving total forgiveness. What exactly does the SPA treatment stands for? The SPA treatment simply means;

S - Speak (the words of forgiveness)
P - Pray (for forgiveness)
A - Act (to give and receive forgiveness)

So as my mind was wandering in la-la land, this SPA treatment was stuck totally to my head. I began figuring how the SPA treatment can be applied to so many other things in our life, not just on forgiveness. Coincidentally, the prior announcement of TOUCH’s award led me towards applying the SPA treatment to charitable causes. (Ok, I admit thinking of something else is to prevent myself from snoring away. LOL! I slept at 4am ok?)

The most common form of charity acts is in the form of monetary donations. I am not saying that monetary donations are not sufficient to be charitable but rather, what if the help needed isn’t about money? For example, someone may need a friend to talk to or perhaps someone to be by their side as an advisory companion over a period of time. These are assistances that money can’t buy unless we can put ourselves physically in that position to offer a shoulder. And I realized this is when action is more important than anything else, even money.

Thinking back on my little mental roadtrip during the service today, the SPA treatment in charitable works probably will look something like;

S - Speak (to promote volunteerism and charity)
P - Pray (for strength of desire to help)
A - Act (to transform that desire into actions)

Ever since the NKF’s saga, it is getting harder to convince and win the confidence of Singaporeans in offering help to the needy. No doubt NKF is working very hard to rectify and literally start afresh with a new management, such a bad name can live on for quite some time. Indeed, NKF is at least putting in realistic actions to remove officials with questionable conducts and formulate new regulations on expenditure of funds.

TOUCH Community Services on the other hand, isn’t just another fundraising organization as well. Instead of depending on once-a-year fundraising events, the volunteers are constantly moving around and offering help in practical ways. With hundreds of charitable organizations in Singapore, can you imagine how many volunteers who are actually moving around us reaching out to the needy? TOUCH’s volunteers are only a small portion of the bigger volunteerism community. No matter which organization we are from, one fact remains firm. To help the needy, we need to ACT!

Come to think of it, it’s quite easy to apply the SPA treatment to any other things in life, isn’t it? Seriously, applying the SPA treatment is the easier thing we can do. What makes it all the more difficult, is to put the SPA treatment into realistic actions. Perhaps, that is also one of the valuable commitments in TOUCH that won them recognition ever since it was started 15 years ago.

I am sure, there are also many more organizations that deserves to be recognize too. So hopefully, TOUCH will also be able to inspire them into continuing with the good works of reaching out to the needy.

It’s a year of victory indeed, but the works are not completed yet. And it will never be completed.