We count it a privilege to be able to visit Peacehaven every Tuesday. Yesterday, it was at HOPE Centre, the Home that caters for those with dementia in various degrees. We were blessed conversing with these dear folk, listening to their stories about their families and their adventures of the past. True, we listen to the same stories every time we meet them, but it gives them the opportunity to talk with visitors.
The Salvation Army put up this building adjacent to Peacehaven Home and opened a conference hall and hostel some years back. Somehow things did not work out. There were reasons and I do not want to join in the speculation. But I firmly believe the Lord has His own purpose for us, so today it is the HOPE Centre which meets a great need. The Lien Foundation has been supporting our work.
We wish we could be with the residents and staff every week, but Peacehaven is very big, there are more than 400 residents and we are able to visit HOPE Centre only once a fortnight - on the second Tuesday of the month only to do pastoral work and on the fourth Tuesday to conduct chapel service. We use Chinese and English in the meeting. Yesterday as soon as I started the meeting, one lady called out, "Please sing 'What a Friend we have in Jesus.'" Another wanted, "Jesus love me this I know." My concertina is well used in Peacehaven!
After each chapel service, I spend time at the piano playing their favourite hymns, like "Blessed assurance" "To God be the glory" and the one they love best, "Jesus loves me this I know."
Every time we visit them, we are always greeted with the complaint "It's been a long time since you last came to see us." Then when we leave them, we hear the same words every time,"When are you coming again?" We all have our sense of time and as we get older time just flies. We often hear the lament, "Where has all the time gone"
Well, we all look forward to spend eternity in heaven. We live in time, but the word of God speaks of time in terms of quality and quantity. We are used to the latter way of reckoning of years and months or chronological time. Peter tells us "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day" 2 Peter 3: 8
Time is something that belongs to our present world as we know it. It is part of the created order and we have no conception of eternity until we get there. Eternity is fully quality time.
We live in time and we live in hope. So it is appropriate that the centre is named HOPE Centre. We hope our visits will encourage the residents to continue to live in hope for Christ is our Hope.
"Praise be the the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," 1 Peter 1: 3
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