Friday at about 1pm, Albert called me to announce that he had decided to bring forward the outing one day earlier as his cell meeting that night had been cancelled. He also asked me if I could be at the care home by 3pm.
I was at Alor Gajah campus. It would take about forty-five minutes to reach there. Rain started to fall when I was stopping at my house to get changed in casual clothes. It became heavier when I was driving towards Ayer Keroh. Thank God I was able to arrive at Bukit Baru on time despite the slow traffic due to the bad weather.
I thought we were going out with the care home van. When I noticed that many of them did not seem to be excited, then I realized only four boys out of nine were qualified: Isaac, Matthew, Luke and Daniel.
Since all of the passengers were small sized except for Isaac, we managed to squeeze our bodies inside Albert's car. We had made a good decision to go with one vehicle instead of two, because it was extremely difficult to find a place to park around the shopping malls at Bandar Hilir, especially since the front parking lot at Mahkota Parade was temporarily close for renovation. We prayed hard, turned several rounds before finally getting an available space near the entrance to the cinema at Dataran Pahlawan.
It was almost 4.30pm. So we bought the tickets for the nearest show at 4.50pm and went to the snack counter to get ourselves a set of popcorns and soft drinks each. The casher was wondering how these children of different races were related to two of us. Previously, Albert had been going out with the care home boys quite regularly. He was already used to people's curiosity.
The film was "The Fourth Kind", a thriller about ongoing unsolved mystery in Alaska, where one town has seen an extraordinary number of unexplainable disappearances during the past 40 years. During the movie, I was more and more irritated by the scenes of people under hypnosis. So I asked God to forgive us for choosing this alien abduction movie and pray that the Holy Spirit would remove from the children's mind what was not from God.
I was relieved when the boys told me that they had found this movie boring. I was also glad that as Christian elders, Albert and I could immediately give explanations on aliens based on the Bible. To us, they were evil spirits if any. I also told Isaac, "You don't have to go so far to the USA. Just walk into a Chinese temple and you might see mediums doing similar things." Albert also gave his comments on certain disturbing scenes where the Holy Spirit purposely blurred the recorded images. Though this movie was classified as PG13, I suspect that many adults, not knowing the truth, would also need guidance themselves.
When we went down to the ground floor again, it was time for dinner. We looked for "Johnny's" Thai restaurant but could not remember its exact location. So we approached a security guard who led us. Luke and Mark quickly followed the man closely.
Albert teased that they looked like as if they had been caught for an offense. I answered that the guard would be holding their hands each instead of letting them walk behind.
When we arrived at the restaurant, the two boys replaced the head waiter to stand outside, waiting for the rest of us. Daniel's missing eyebrows were still hardly visible, which gave him an alien look. Had he stood at the entrance longer, he might have scared away potential customers!
A polite Nepalese waiter attended to us with an English that the children liked a lot. Each of us ordered a set dinner which included a bowl of tomyam soup, a main dish, a scoop of ice-cream and a glass of Thai pandan tea. I would not hesitate to take a beef dish when I dined outside.
I was very blessed by my first outing with the care home children and looked forward to getting involved in their activities more often. I had learned to show care and attention to children regardless of their skin colours which God completely ignores. The true spirit of "One Malaysia" is here in this God's family in Melaka.
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