Months ago, I went for a camp organized by Sikhs With A Mission, which took place in Sri Desmesh School. It was a mind blowing experience as I learnt so many new concepts about Sikhism. The way the questions were thrown to us, we were needed to think fast and give a suitable answer. Its something great. However, thats the past, now what lies ahead of me is the future. What missions do I have in this Island of Borneo?
I want to bring a change in the Sikh community of Kuching. I was inspired by Manvir Singh Khalsa the first time I read about this guy. By the way, he is from U.K.. He is one of the most blessed souls within the sikh community I'll say, because he made a sacrifice(for some), and took amrit and be one of the small population of amritdhari in that region. He conducted many camps for to spread the message of God. In some of his post, he went to schools to let children know what is Sikhism. This humble soul was a crop, however, he did not feel comfortable cutting his hair as he remembered the Sakhi of Bhai Taru Singh Ji.
It was the time of wars where Aurengzeb was the emperor. He wanted to convert everyone in Punjab to be Muslim. However, the Sikhs stand strong to stop him from doing so. The Khalsas were tortured and slaughtered everyday. Blood was spilt everywhere, grown men crying in pain, bodies covered the whole land as a bed sheet coving a bed. Thousands, if not millions of bodies scattered the land. In this brutal war, Bhai Taru Singh Ji was captured. The Mughel soldiers tried to cut Bhai Taru's hair, however they fell to do so. It was said that Bhai Taru's hair was as hard as steel. Even with scissors and swords, they can't cut even a single strain of his hair. In the end, they took off his whole scalp.
Remembering this Sakhi, Manvir Singh made a decision to stop cutting his hair and keep it. He was around 15 when he start thinking of keeping his hair. There were no children keeping their hair at that time in U.K..
Being one of the handful amritdhari in Kuching, I want to really need to start my mission here. I have a few plans to inspire the children in Kuching to learn more about Sikhism and and live as a Sikh in a Sikhi seroop. However, I haven't voice out my ideas yet, and I am planning to do so as soon as possible. I want to run a series of competition among the children and adults here in this community. Since Vaisakhi is just 4 months away, I hope that this competitions will be conducted as a Vaisakhi event. I hope that they can make this competition as an annual event here in Kuching. By doing this, I am sure that more and more children and adults will be able to learn more about their faith.
My mission in Kuching is to bring up the community here to a higher level of understanding. When there are competitions, certainly there are prizes. This is what actually bothering me, because I don't know what sort of gifts should I give them. How to attract their attention to join this competition? How should I conduct these competitions? Where can I conduct these competitions? I am still having so many question marks with me. I hope that everyone who reads this post will pray for me to be able to conduct these competition, certainly, I will not take part in any of the competitions that I want to organize.
The competitions that I have in mind is Gurbani Antaksheri Competition(which I hope that it can be divided into 3 categories, namely: Children below 12 years old, Teenager between 13 to 18 years old, and adult), Kirtan Competition(who can sing the best wins), Gurbani Reading Competition(this I hope that it is devided into 2 groups, however, i can't really see any potential candidates yet. Who knows??), Quizes to test the knowledge of Sikhism among the sangat(there will be different level of difficulities as the age group varies).
When I think of such competitions, I feel that I really want to join in as a participent, however, if I join in, then there will be a 90% chance that I'll win the contest. Let see what will happen in the next few months. I hope that those of you who are reading this post will pray for the success of this competition(pray that this competition could be held for the first time in Kuching).
For now, this is my mission.
5 weeks ago
