Spring Cleaning

By Allen Tan

It has been announced during the church services over the last few weeks that the church will be having an extensive spring cleaning exercise of the premises. We also intend to spruce up the compound. Your humble servant who writes this article is entrusted to lead this task. I am both glad and encouraged by the enthusiastic response from the brethren who are volunteering themselves to help in this work. 

The church does not usually need to mobilize the congregation to do the general cleaning of the premises. In fact, we have contracted cleaners to do the general upkeeping and cleaning once a week for many years. However, there are many areas, corners, stores, classrooms, kitchens and toilets where we need to tidy up further. 

There are broken furniture, left-over building materials, printed materials, waste papers, old plastics containers, defective equipment, old and unused utensils that need to be discarded. You can find some items lying around in the open areas, others are hidden away in secluded places like the storerooms and unused toilets in both the buildings. 

At the peripheral of the premises on the side next to the big drain, it is also littered with broken flower pots, tree branches, ceramic tiles, etc. We either need to dispose the unusable objects or to refurbish, restore or rearrange some of these items. I wonder sometimes how did some of these unwarranted things get there in the first place! I believe those items were being hoarded up over a long period of time. 

Additionally, we should also clean up the filters of the indoor air conditioning blowers for better air quality. We have a dozen units of air conditioners installed at all the classrooms, library, auditoriums and offices. So, we do need quite a lot of manpower to complete all the tasks within this half a day exercise on a Sunday afternoon. 

Brethren, carrying out these duties may be laborious, but consider it a joy that you have the ability to provide help. It is indeed a good exercise for the physical body, thus beneficial for our health. Also when we come together to do the work as a team, it helps to foster stronger fellowship among brethren and thus it’s also enriching to the spiritual well-being of the body, the church. We should also regard this as our service to the Lord even as we render our services for the benefit of one another. 

In the early days of the Klang church history, the congregation was small and consisted mostly of school-going teenagers. The Klang church at its beginning stage, though it was not well-off economically but it definitely was not poor spiritually. 

The members though young in age and in faith, were very committed in studying the Bible, active in sharing the gospel, fervent in the faith and warm in their fellowship. Limited by financial resources, the congregation opted for cheaper rental by taking the top floor of shop houses, using them as its place of worship and meeting place. 

At that time, the brethren certainly could not afford to hire cleaners to maintain the cleanliness of the premises. In fact, no one had ever thought it was necessary to outsource the work to others. The brethren came together voluntarily and participated in upkeepingthe meeting place on a week basis. 

With fond memories, I still recollect vividly the joys and close fellowship we had during those regular cleaning sessions at the premises located at the second floor of 6B & 8B of Persiaran Sultan Ibrahim, Klang. Besides the usual sweeping and mopping, the vinyl laminated floor periodically required vigorous scrubbing with detergent to remove the stubborn stains and dirt. 

I remember it was brother Donald Chiam who usually coordinated the cleaning exercise once every month. He was given a nice title for his position as the Building Chairman, for the upkeeping and maintenance of the premises. We usually carried out this tedious cleaning sessions on Saturday afternoons when many of our young and school-going members were able to participate. 

Many of these brethren, boys and girls, I could still remember them clearly how we were there together, kneeling down on our knees literally, scrubbing the vinyl flooring. Many of these brethren grew up, became very successful in their career with good families. 

More notably, these humble servants are still faithful in the Lord, leading and serving in their own local congregations wherever they go. I would like to mention some of their names here: brothers Chang Long Jong, Richard Lim, Bobby Tan, Peter Chin, Wong CheeShyan, Ronnie Lee, Donald Chiam, the late Christopher Ho, and sisters Lily Tan, Joanna Quek, Chew ShengChyng, Christina Lim, and Teh Chong Foo. There were some others too, of course! 

Fast forward to 2018. The church of Christ in Klang has grown in size, blessed with much financial resources. Today with two separate buildings which we built and owned, we are able to conduct worship services in English, Chinese and Tamil separately but concurrently, with membership totalling two hundred. Over the years, many families and individuals had placed their membership in the congregations they helped to establish – in Subang Jaya, Kota Kemuning, and Section 17 Petaling Jaya. 

In conclusion, we give glory to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ for His manifold blessings which He has bestowed richly upon our beloved congregation in Klang. Each of us as individual parts of the body must strive to work together in unity as described in 1 Corinthians 12. 

Regardless of insignificant a task may seem, even the humble service of cleaning the floor, it contributes to the perfect function of the body, the church. Finally, I wish to extend my heart felt appreciation to each of you for your support and participation of our spring cleaning session this afternoon. You will remember with nostalgic and fond memories your participation on this day, 9 December 2018.