CV NEWS FEED // A group of Malaysian Catholics recently lived for a night alongside the homeless in the streets of a suburb as part of a Lenten ministry campaign, and returned to their own homes calling it a “humbling experience.”
One of the participants, Melina Yeoh, wrote for Herald Malaysia that “Being homeless for a night was a heart-warming lesson in human fraternity among the last, the lost and the least.”
Yeoh and 16 other Catholics aged 17 to 79 from eight different parishes in the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur participated in the campaign, which started off with Mass at 5 p.m. After Mass and a short briefing, the group went out into the city with only the clothes on their backs, a piece of cardboard for sleeping on, and their identity cards.
The group had their first encounter with the homeless of Chow Kit as they tried to find food for dinner. According to Yeoh, they met two men who gave them advice for sleeping on the streets, telling them to remain alert and sleep in shifts to avoid being robbed.
The group then split up into four smaller groups and continued to walk the streets, distributing their extra food and talking with the homeless.
“The love from our street brothers is always flowing, even when we searched for a safe place to sleep,” Yeoh wrote. “One street brother advised us to find a brightly lit place to avoid mosquitoes … When we chose a clean, unoccupied brightly lit corridor a street brother walked up and told us that we would be drenched if it rained. Then he showed us a more suitable adjacent block where he was sleeping.”
Yeoh’s group made friends with a man whom she referred to as “Fred” to protect his identity. They ended up sleeping in his street, though she added that the heat made it nearly impossible to sleep.
She wrote that during the night, there were many peaceful interactions with passers-by, other homeless, and security patrol teams.
“If I was alone on the streets, I would feel the danger of being exposed to all risks, I would be afraid that my IC [identity card] and other precious possessions would be stolen,” Yeoh wrote. “I only did it for one night; Fred and friends do it every day.”
Yeoh continued:
On an emotional level, now whenever I see anyone walking on the streets carrying a cardboard, I feel more connected to them, that we have shared an experience together. I pray that they find a safe place to sleep, that they are shielded from rain and any external danger.
We pray that through this activity, we will change our way of living and be more appreciative of what we have and what we can do to help more people in need.
The post Malaysian Catholics sleep on streets with homeless for Lenten campaign appeared first on CatholicVote org.