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Ways Of Seva: My Story, Your Story

Nov 23, 2010
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599
I am interested in hearing from everyone what are the different approaches they take do to seva?

My wife and I, with the help of a very impressive young man, started a new project yesterday that I wanted to share with you all.

First of all a word about our friend Manzur, He’s not Sikh. (But he’s a good example of a Sikh) I imagine he’s Catholic but truth is I don’t know for sure. We’ve known him and his family as customers in our bakery since he was a teenager. When he was about 20 years old he had some type of attack that caused him to stop breathing and as a result he lost about 85% of his vision. This hasn’t stopped him from living his life. He works, is married and has a son of about a year. About 2 years ago he and his wife started taking yoga classes with my wife. One day he was explaining that he and his wife formed a charitable organization that goes to the local public hospital on Christmas and New Year’s Eve to give sandwiches and coffee to people who have family members in the hospital.

This hospital serves a lot of truly poor people. We live in the capital city and many come from small towns, some travel for hours on public transport. It’s customary here that family members do the work that’s done by nurses or professional attendants in States. They have do things like helping the patients to eat, wash, and go to the bathroom. The hospital has a dormitory that can accept up to 80 people a day with food and shelter but that only covers portion of the people who come here. When these people are at the hospital they aren’t working so they don’t have their normal income.

My wife and I have talked about what we could do as meaningful type of seva but we hadn’t settled on anything. We have Gurdwara in the yoga studio that we have about six times a year. We are learning Kirtan and we prepare langar. I suppose you can call that seva but it feels more like party. To give you an idea about the people that we are aiding, we have a woman who helps with the house cleaning once a week. Recently her father was interned in the hospital and she had to go and help her sisters. She explained how expensive a cup of coffee was outside the hospital, $8.00 peso. To put that in perspective ,I buy my coffee at the “kwiki mart” and accustomed to pay about $15.00 peso for a cup of coffee. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that $8.00 peso would be expensive but for her and a lot of other people it is.

When we found out about Manzur’s charity work, we asked if he wanted help. We could commit to going to the hospital once a month. He was ecstatic because he has only been able to do this once a year. We settled on starting in January of this year.

We made arrangements to meet in our Bakery to prepare sandwiches and coffee at 7:30am in order to be at the hospital by 9:00. Manzur brought his cousin, his driver and a friend who is visiting from Cuba so we had an international, interfaith seva, very cool. The friend from Cuba asked about what sikhi was so we got to give a brief course on basic sikhi while we made sandwiches. He was impressed we’ve arranges to pass him books and literature.

At the hospital we passed out 100 sandwiches and 5 gallons of coffee in a little less than an hour. Everyone was very appreciative. Many people came to say “thank you, May God bless you”. One woman who was there waiting on her mother in law came to thank us and ask how she could contact us. She lives in a town about 30 kilometers away. She bakes bread in her house and wants to donate bread sometime in the future. She couldn’t right now but when she was working again she would.

When we were done we decided to go back to the bakery to have breakfast and talk about the experience. Manzur walked with us back to our car. I had to park about six blocks away. We were talking and laughing so much that by the time we got to the car Manzur said that his face hurt from laughing so much.

During the breakfast Manzur’s driver, a man of around 60 years old explained, with tears in his eyes, how moved he was to be helping people. That people think about themselves and their families but usually not about all the other people that need help.

The whole experience was truly wonderful. We not only got to share a little with people who truly needed it, we met a person who wants to share what little she has. We also got share of points of view, a lot of laughter and a few tears of joy, all in all a good start.

We’re looking to find other ways to share, so If you have ideas post them please.
 

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Scarlet Pimpernel

We seek him here,we sikh
Writer
SPNer
May 31, 2011
1,001
1,095
In the Self
I'm a bit worried about the person who sells the coffee normally as you may have affected them that day.I would give them the 5 Gallons and tell them to sell it half price.Plus we are Indians make some Nice Herbal Tea.
 
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Luckysingh

Writer
SPNer
Dec 3, 2011
1,634
2,758
Vancouver
Well Done !!
Fantastic !!
I wish there was more people like this !

I can't really give you ideas, but sometimes if a kind thought comes into your mind then it is wise to follow it.
To practically do something whilst donating as well is a much better accomplishment.
 

Kellysingh

SPNer
Sep 28, 2011
41
32
41
beautiful and inspiring . If only alot of people had the same attitude as the man who lost alot of his vision. This is just awe inspiring and nice to read people helping people and even those with a injury still helping others shows us we should have no excuse for not helping others. I want to help a local sikh (as i am a new sikh) with anywork he may need done but im scared to ask him as i dont want to offend fellow sikh. he is a business owner of mini mart.:blueturban:
 
Nov 14, 2008
283
419
beautiful and inspiring . If only alot of people had the same attitude as the man who lost alot of his vision. This is just awe inspiring and nice to read people helping people and even those with a injury still helping others shows us we should have no excuse for not helping others. I want to help a local sikh (as i am a new sikh) with anywork he may need done but im scared to ask him as i dont want to offend fellow sikh. he is a business owner of mini mart.:blueturban:

hello Kelly ,hw you want to help him0:)
 

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