A Special Christmas Party

Not many Tiarans may know that nestled between the tennis court and the function hall/squash courts is a facility for special children. Some of these children live in Tiara though there are others who come to use the facility here, which was started in July 2005.

According to a report, these children have improved their talking , playing , writing, colouring, reading and other skills because of "dedicated parents, good teachers, great programmes, consultants/advisors and other therapies."

On Saturday, December 23rd, 2006, in keeping with the festive spirit, the City Church KL sponsored a Christmas Party for the special children, their parents as well as some invited guests.

The 150-strong City Church, headquartered at the Sunway College Auditorium, set up large and colourful paper cut-outs of Christmas trees, stars and snowflakes as a background at the function hall of Tiara Damansara. Children sat on chairs or the floor, on carpets, as their parents kept an eye on them.

Then at midday, Pastor Mark Barughese started the festivities going by giving a short speech. He saluted the parents of the special children, stating that the volunteers who came today gave of their time and effort for the young ones "maybe one day in the year" whereas parents, the actual care-givers , gave of their time 365 days of each and every year. "They are great parents to be entrusted with these special children," he said.

How did the Tiara facility come to the attention of the City Church KL? Jochebed Jayasooria, who comes to the facility to help out, mentioned it to her church members, who were all for sponsoring a Christmas gathering, to bring cheer to the parents and their little ones. The enthusiastic helpers, all decked out with red Santa hats and red T-shirts, made various sandwiches, fried meehoon and even vegetarian noodles, cocktail sausages with cucumber cubes on sticks, chicken drummets, chicken wings, cake and orange drinks and had gifts for every child.

The first to receive a gift was Johan, a toddler - it was his very first Christmas party. Yen Chern, 5, had 2 gifts, a small package and a big one. Teasingly, I asked the young boy whether I could have one of his gifts. Without a moment's hesitation, he handed me the large gift. I was very touched.

Santa Claus (a.k.a. Reuben David) was in great form, prancing all over the hall as he made contact with every child and handed them gifts. He was nonplussed why he had been requested to play Santa "since I am not chubby, and had to pad myself up a lot to gain some weight." I explained that maybe it was the sign of the times - even the girth of Santa was affected by the Malaysian economy !

Besides the usual evergreens, Here Comes Santa Claus, Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Santa even led a train of squealing children and church members on a Conga. There were also groups of children hopping on one leg as they sang Ring-A-Ring-O’Roses before everyone went falling down, when peals of laughter riveted around the hall.

Standing out among the crowd were three African students, all members of the Church. Students of Sunway College, they came to know about the Church since services were held in the College auditorium. Elizabeth Ouma, Anna Kirbadi and Gshter Murrthi, all from Kenya, are students in Hospitality, Tourism and Bio-Med respectively. We hit it off at once when I mentioned Kenya was my favourite country in Africa, which also was my favourite continent.

I regaled them with my adventures sitting in a 4-seater plane gliding over the African Rift Valley as we chased a herd of elephants with Phil Leakey, his German pilot and American banker, on our way to his hotel - built entirely with wood - in the bush; Tree-Tops, a hotel atop a big old tree, where Princess Elizabeth was proclaimed Queen on the death of her father whilst holidaying there; flying above millions of pink flamingoes over Lake Nakuru; seeing game at the Kenya National Game Park, and watching a million Kenyans marching along to Uhuru (Freedom) Square in solidarity for Jomo Kenyatta from my hotel room on a top floor of the Nairobi Hilton.

The occasion came to an end an hour later, but not before Jochebed (a supervisor of the Early Autism Project Malaysia, which started operations in September 2006) informed me that Brenda Boehm, a consultant from the US-based Wisconsin Early Autism Project, was now based in Malaysia, and that autism awareness in the country would now play a bigger role here. For those wishing to contact Jochebed Jayasooria, she can be reached at: 012-3648686.