“[I]f there is anything good that exists and endures in this world, it is only because, in innumerable situations, love has prevailed over hate, solidarity over indifference, generosity over selfishness.”—Pope Francis
To be terribly honest, when I started University, I had 2 goals: secure a job, and go on exchange.
And so it was, in my post-exchange, post-securing training contract life, that I somehow find myself in the doldrums, with the clock ticking inexorably towards the end of 16 years of formal schooling and the start of my quarter-life crisis (To those who are still striving/waiting for a training contract, don’t worry, you’ll get there!). Nothing I was doing seemed particularly interesting or exciting.
That was, until I received a message one evening from my law school batchmate, Gwen, asking me if I would like to help cover a visit to a Batam orphanage in Indonesia for Justified. This was to be for a ‘Business & Finance for Lawyers’ research project assignment (which is a module you can take in law school!).
As part of their group assignment, they could take on a project related to either a start-up, a report on AI, a stock portfolio, a ‘project which encapsulates the spirit of a social enterprise’, or a ‘white canvas’.
Gwen and her fellow group members, Shivani and Heather, decided to pick a social enterprise project. Through their professor’s contact, they managed to contact the House of Shalom Christian Children Home in Batam and arranged a Saturday where they could travel down to the orphanage to conduct their project.
ICYMI: if you have been around law school this October, the ‘Wingstop pop-up stall’ was another group’s Business Finance project.
The programme of activities that they had planned for the children was very well thought out. As the children living in the orphanage ranged in age from toddlers to teenagers in high school, our activities were thus planned to cater towards the different age groups throughout the day, and was primarily designed as an ‘educational workshop’ to prep the kids there for their future.
For the younger kids, they had planned a series of future career workshops to introduce them to different career paths, and inspire them to work toward their dreams. For the older kids, they prepared a resume-writing workshop as well as a job interview skills session, before planning to cap off the day with a ‘financial literacy’ workshop.
In tandem with these activities, Gwen, Shivani, and Heather also conducted a ‘backpack donation drive’ here in school, which collected over 50 backpacks. The law firm Seng Sheoh & Co also contributed to the orphanage’s University Fund, which goes towards paying the children's university fees.
To get a wider diversity of career paths and personal passions, Gwen, Shivani, and Heather each also recruited a number of student volunteers to come along to Batam to conduct the various workshops and activity sessions.
And so here is where Gwen’s request for Justified to cover this event comes in. I readily agreed to represent Justified, mainly because I felt it was a great chance to go overseas for a day, which sounded like an exciting prospect.
Despite my initial enthusiasm, by the time I showed up at the Habourfront Ferry Terminal at 7.15 am on a Saturday morning, bleary-eyed and sleep deprived, I was just about regretting my earlier spontaneous decision. Given that this was at the end of Week 9, I had an absolutely soul-crushing amount of things I had to do that weekend—assignments, projects, notes, and dedicating an entire Saturday to this project seemed like a luxury I could not afford.
At the ferry terminal, I finally got to meet the rest of our group who were travelling to Batam with us in person. Gwen, Shivani, and Heather managed to outdo themselves in recruiting people with varied experiences and perspectives.
There was Jeremy, my batchmate in Law school; Estelle, an economics student; Xavier, who was also an economics student but also a financial advisor; Sree, a Data Science student; Charlene and Jean, who were both from NTU, studying Environmental Science and Public Policy, and Journalism, respectively; and Alyssa, a Communications student who does street photography on the side, who had been recruited to be our photographer on our trip.
In the short time it took to get through immigration, cruise to Batam (tickets for which were very kindly sponsored directly by Majestic Fast Ferry in support of House of Shalom), and get to the orphanage, I got to know everyone on the trip with us.
The first meeting
The staff must have known that we were reaching because when we got there, all the children were waiting on the porch for us.
Sari, the Head of Staff at the home, ushered us and the children into the communal area of the house. We were stood on one end of the room, while all the children living in the home faced us.
‘How are you feeling today?’ Sari called out to the children.
‘I am blessed! Yes! Yes! Yes!’ the children responded enthusiastically in unison.
Sari then led the children in introducing themselves to us. They were all of different ages, and from all over Indonesia, but I noted that most of them were either from Batam, Medan, or Kalimantan. A few of the alumni from the home had also come down for the occasion.
Afterwards, they sang a couple of songs that they had prepared for us.
Despite this being the first time, we had met each other, all the kids were remarkably friendly, never hesitating to smile or to wave at us. This helped to quickly break the ice between us.
Thereafter, we began our activities with the children. We started out with the series of ‘future career talks’ for the younger kids, covering broad career pathways in ‘Journalism’, ‘Technology’, ‘Environmental Science’, and ‘Entrepreneurship’, to be presented by Jean, Sree, Charlene, and Jeremy, respectively.
As each of them presented, what I was struck by was just how well-behaved all the kids, especially the younger ones, managed to be. While each of the speakers undoubtedly did their best to be an engaging and interesting speaker, as anyone who has ever had to handle a bunch of nine or ten year olds can attest, you aren’t keeping their attention beyond the first half an hour or so. Moreover, the presentations were being carried out in a language that most of them weren’t familiar with, which required the simultaneous translation into Bahasa Indonesia by one of the alumni.
Yet, almost all of them were attentive, and engaging with the material presented to them.
The other thing I noticed was that while the presentations were meant for the younger children, practically all the older teenagers remained, listening to the presentations, keeping the younger children company, facilitating the activity sessions, and being quick to hug or hold the younger children throughout the session. They really did all seem very tight and close with one another.
The presentations themselves were also incredibly informative. I learnt something new about each of the career paths that were presented, and to hear Jeremy present about the various businesses he runs while juggling law school (a Taekwondo school and an event tentage company) was nothing short of inspiring. The speakers’ attempts to keep things engaging by having a game at the end of each presentation also turned out to be surprisingly fun. Sree came up with a game to simulate the principles of coding, which I found immensely enjoyable.
Playing the games with the kids also yielded a number of interesting moments. Charlene’s activity which involved getting the kids to draw ‘their ideal neighbourhood’, led to Stevenly, one of the teenage boys living at the home, to draw a rather complex diagram complete with urban planning concepts like mixed-used zoning and 15-minute cities. I was shocked.
After a delicious ayam penyet lunch, which Gwen, Shivani, and Heather sponsored for the entire home, we began our afternoon activities, which was targeted at the older children in the home. This consisted of a resume writing workshop, and an interview workshop, with Alyssa going around one by one to take professional corporate headshots for them to use in their future university applications.
The House of Shalom makes an effort to get all the children to do well academically in school, sending them to a prestigious private school in Batam, and maintaining a university fund. And seeing how the alumni who had come back to assist were all either university graduates or current undergraduates, it seemed that the orphanage was rather successful in their goal.
By the time we were about to start, they were all ready for us. They had changed into their formal business attires, and they had prepared tables and chairs in the communal area we were previously in. Once again, they were remarkably attentive and diligent, working quietly on shared laptops to write out their resumes. And perhaps because they had been so humble the entire day, I was very pleasantly surprised to observe that many of them had rather extensive accomplishments in school—academic awards, leadership positions, and extra-curricular activities.
While these activities were taking place, Jeremy, perhaps rather moved by what he had seen so far, decided to treat everyone at the home to dessert. After consulting with some of the staff on what they best liked, he went off with one of them and came back about an hour later with bags and bags of Mixue ice cream and lemonade, which we all took the time to enjoy.
We finished off the day’s activities with the ‘Financial Literacy’ class conducted by Xavier, to teach the older children who might be starting work soon how to manage their finances well. It really was rather engaging. I learned a lot myself about financial planning from his session, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game he designed where you get to roleplay this kid over the course of multiple days and see whether you have enough money to pay your school fees by the end of it through the financial choices you make.
He also gave a very sensible explanation on ways to save money and invest, which of course attracted highly complicated questions from the kids on US Treasury bond yields and whether to invest in commodities or stocks.
Frankly, this all went over my head.
Behind the scenes
During some downtime on the day, I took the opportunity to try and find out more about how the House of Shalom orphanage operated, and what the residents thought about the place. I ended up having an extensive sit down interview with both Sari, the head of staff, and Eka, an alumnus of the home who lived there for 12 years, and who was now a law undergraduate at a university in Batam.
“The children we find,” Sari shared, “not necessarily don’t have parents. But for whatever reason they might be unable to take care of their children, not being able to send their children for school, then we would come down and assess the situation.”
The children who are mostly from Christian families, are identified as needy through the orphanage’s contacts, and through their church networks. Some of these trips, she said, could take days, sometimes to incredibly far flung and remote locations.
The decision to take in a child into the home is always a difficult one, and requires the consent of both the parents and the children. Still, the children and the parents do change their minds after the fact.
“Especially when they first arrive, it’s natural that the children miss their parents,” Sari said.
“But sometimes they run away too, and then we would have to go out and find them. It is always something that makes us very anxious, and we spend a lot of time and people to get them back.”
“They also get to go back to their families once a year, and sometimes after that the children or the parents decide they don’t want to come back. We respect that. But sometimes even the parents don’t want the children back, because they simply do not have the means to take care of them properly.”
Eka echoes the complicated family circumstances that brought her to the home. Her parents had fought, and split, and her mother was not in a position to take care of her. And it was her, and her sister, that had begged their mother to put them in the home, because of the instability of their domestic situation. But despite these issues, Eka still has a good relationship with her mother, and as the latter’s situation stabilised, she also became a volunteer, and helper, at the orphanage.
At some point in my interview, I brought up the interesting ‘call and response’’ cheer that all the children did when we first arrived, which brought a smile to Sari’s face. A key part of their mission at the House of Shalom, she shared, was not just to provide the physical necessities, but to develop all of them, emotionally, morally, and spiritually. They organised daily morning prayers, where they would do the call and response, to get the children to internalise within them that ‘I am loved. I am loved, and I am blessed, and I am chosen by God. And I am blessed so that I can be a blessing to others.’.
And throughout the week, Sari said, the staff would organise sessions for the children to talk about their problems, to overcome them, to learn from them, but also to give support to one another, for the children to trust each other, and for the older children to mentor the younger ones.
Perhaps this explained how all the children seemed so happy, so at ease with each other, I thought.
Of course, I do not imagine for a moment that everything is so smooth sailing all the time, and Sari confirmed as much. What Sari pointed out to me, however, was the orphanage’s policy of never soliciting for donations.
“We trust that God will provide what we need,” Sari said, “and we don’t ask for more than we get.”
That doesn’t belie the fact that there are often difficult moments financially. House of Shalom manages to send the children living there to a private school, which Eka explained, is actually one of the most prestigious in Batam, but it is not cheap, and the home is sometimes at real risk of missing payments for fees, for books, and for uniforms when donations are slow.
Sari says that she makes it a point to show what difficulties they have, however.
“No one needs to know we are worried,” she says.
Somehow or other, they get through. Sari also mentions that they often receive anonymous donations from people who do not want to be identified. There are also a number of prominent companies, and individuals, who make regular donations to the orphanage too.
I looked at the cup of Mixue lemonade that Jeremy had spontaneously bought for the whole orphanage in my hands.
“Did you know, that in the 16 years that House of Shalom has been running, we have never had to buy rice?”
House of Shalom was set up by two Christian pastors, Pastor David & Pastor Jacey (a Malaysian and Singaporean, respectively, who have been residing in the UK for over 40 years), first as a women’s shelter, and later as an orphanage. For a large portion of that time, Sari has been continuously working as a staff member. I also wanted to know what could continuously motivate someone to spend years and years of their life, working in an orphanage, and dealing with the physical and emotional strains, and financial uncertainties that come with the job?
“There was a time too where I was very unhappy with what life had given me,” Sari said.
“I had been in a bad accident,” she said, showing me a large scar across her leg, “But I also lived in an orphanage myself, for 6 years. It was a very bad conditions, nothing like what things are like here now, and so, I kept asking, what was my calling?” This led her to the home, where she says, that despite all these difficulties, she has been at her happiest.
And from observing her the entire day, and speaking to her, I did not doubt that one bit.
What Sari, and her staff, and I am sure the pastors and donors and volunteers have built over the years also seemed to have rubbed off on those who have come through the orphanage. Eka spoke about how she had experienced, how her own life, which was broken up by the challenges and vicissitudes of life, had been transformed into one with a bright future ahead of her from the love she experienced. She talked at length about her hope of using what she learns in law to help to speak for those who do not have a voice. And as for the orphanage, she is still continuously drawn back to help out.
“The home never asks anything of the children, ever,” said Eka. “It just gives and gives.”
As we prepared to leave, all the children had once again gathered on the porch to wave us goodbye. As always, they maintained their good cheer and enthusiasm. They continued waiting and waving even as we stood outside awkwardly for the next 5 minutes waiting for our Grabs to arrive, even as we awkwardly tried to squeeze into our vehicles, and even as the driver made the wrong turn into a dead end and had to reverse back out again past the orphanage after we had said goodbye.
Looking back on short time in Batam on this random Saturday in October, I thought about how most or all of the people in that home must have had some sad circumstance or other, but yet in my short time there, I had watched how the combined love of a number of disparate, orphaned children, who across generations and decades have built a loving community of joy for themselves and others like them.
And while I am sure they have to consistently face a great deal more challenges and difficulties than I probably do in my own life, they seem to approach it with a great deal more love and humility. This love that they had for God, for each other, seems to have given them the impetus to carry on, to build each other up.
As a Christian myself, while planning out this piece, I was reminded of this speech by Pope Francis, which he made when he visited Singapore recently. While I suppose it probably does more for me than someone who might be non-Christian or non-religious, I still think it is a rather meaningful message to think about, especially in the context of this piece. As I lack his eloquence, I have decided to reproduce the relevant part in full:
“[B]ehind each of the works in front of us there are many stories of love to be discovered: of men and women united with one another in a community, of citizens dedicated to their country, of mothers and fathers concerned for their families, of professionals and workers of all kinds sincerely engaged in their various roles and tasks. It is good for us, then, to learn to read these stories, written on the front of our homes and on the paths of our streets, and to pass on their memory, in order to remind us that nothing lasting is born or grows without love.
Sometimes it happens that the greatness and grandeur of our projects can make us forget this, and fool us into thinking that we can be the sole authors of our lives, of our wealth, our wellbeing, our happiness. Yet, ultimately, life always brings us back to one reality: without love we are nothing.”
Author's note: I would like to thank Sari and Eka for agreeing to be interviewed for this piece, Alyssa for taking some of the photos used in this article, Gwen, Shivani, and Heather for organising this event, to Majestic Fast Ferry for sponsoring the ferry transportation, and Seng Sheoh and Co for donating to the House of Shalom University Fund.
