The Sisters of Charity hosted a summer educational programme at St. Gerosa’s Convent from March 15 to May 20, 2011. Titus Tin Maung recounts his experience of joining this workshop for the month of April.
Spiritual disposition
Fresh grass grows for cattle. The savage lions came out roaring for their prey, claiming their food from God (Psalm; 104:14, 21). The psalmist invites me to look at the entire universe in a particular way. Indeed, as rain is meant for the grass so is the latter for the cattle for which carnivorous beings such as lions always hunt. For the survival of one, another does seem to have itself sacrificed. Has it always been a rule or natural law to which all creatures are subjected?
I am being driven into an imagination in which all things work in inter-dependent and unifying manners. In one’s contemplation, one can visualize the principle of sharing goodness. This principle begins with the God who loves and relates with others and this principle continues in all the creations. Indeed, goodness shares itself. Similarly, in my limited understanding of love, love shares itself too. Logically, it does seem to me that love must be goodness or vice versa. This sharing of goodness is seen all around us and therefore love is indeed all around us. So this environment of ours, this planet of ours, this universe of ours is full of love. This is a loving universe.
Acknowledging myself to be a finite creature, I cannot but be subjected to the rule or natural law. I am obliged to play my role just like all the other creatures in the universe. Indeed, man is but a channel through which God’s graces flow to others. With this disposition, I left home for Loikaw.
Outreach
The summer English programme helps the children improve their English and raise their morale. This year, there were 350 students of all religions in the programme. They were delighted with their generous, kind and friendly teachers and the spacious, clean classroom and learning environment.
Classes ran five days a week with the students divided into two groups. The first group of 200 students had lessons from 8 am to 10 am while the other 150 students had lessons from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm.
SAG, the group that runs this summer programme, is known for its generous services in Loikaw provided by qualified instructors and more and more students are grabbing the opportunities it offers. In the spirit of magis, SAG is currently training more assistant teachers whose availability and generous services will be indispensable for this humble but noble apostolate.
The sisters asked me for information about class management and I was pleased to be able to share with them the material I had from my courses on general psychology and class management. Our common free time was spent discussing relevant areas such as human development, cognitive learning and memory.
I also stressed that the teachers adopt a positive attitude towards their students because I firmly believe that positive teacher expectation will result in better student performance. Psychologically, this boosts their self-confidence, which may cause chains of positive effects in their learning process.
In the last week of my stay in Loikaw, I gave three formation talks to youth at the request of their parish priest. As the parish was 18 km away, I had to leave immediately after the morning classes. Doing so three days that week gave me an experience of what having a hectic schedule is like. It also gave me a sense of what mission work is like and it was quite a fulfilling experience.
I told the young people about our Christian vocation, our need to care for nature and the importance of taking responsibility. It is my hope that some good seeds were sown among these youth and that they will grow and bear fruit.
