It was raining very heavily yesterday evening and Winnie and I were caught in the rain when we reached the Subang Jaya Buddhist Association to set up our booth on Kathina eve.
Rain or no rain, we managed to unload everything and set up our booth.
Soon Terry arrived and we were all set for the evening.
However, it was a very quiet evening and the smallest Kathina crowd I had ever seen! I didn't know the school holidays had started. Also, with Deepavali around the corner, many people were not in town.
The next morning, I thought the crowd would be small again, so I just brought enough stock. Siew Ee was there at 7am sharp to help me set up the booth.
This is Jackie and her son, Terence. Terence is a special child. He is autistic. Apparently, according to Jackie, Terence listens to many of my talks given at the temple and he can recite whatever I say to his mum and even "preach" to his mum. I'm impressed. Autistic children are geniuses. Mother-and-son had specially come all the way to meet me today.
Another gentleman had also come all the way to say thank you and also to take one of my CDs for his mum in Alor Setar. Apparently, his mum suffers from depression and after listening to some of my talks, she recovered. Well..that's really nice to hear. If only I knew what it was I said that did the trick! We'll never know, it could be just one sentence that triggered recovery, somehow.
A jolly bubbly boy!
There were lots of people who came to take my latest book...to complete their collection. A gentleman had come all the way from Kota Bahru too. He took a pack of my latest books back for distribution there, and he also bought us authentic nasi kerabu from Kota Bahru. It was hot stuff! Very authentic!
Another man offered to take my books to Kampar and Temoh for distribution, too. It is a pretty long story, but I had spent my early childhood in Kampar. Left when I was in the middle of Std Five. This man had also spent his childhood in Kampar and he said some of the folks back there remembered me. I'm really surprised, though, because I left the town when I was barely 11 years old! It's been 37 years....small world, isn't it?
Terry and Jessie were here to help...thank goodness for that as we were swarmed by visitors each time a session ended inside the temple.
Kathina is a celebration where devotees make offerings of food, medicine and requisites to the monastics.
I had to call my husband to replenish our stock THREE times.
The crowd was small, but there were many visitors at our booth. They wanted to support our work - that was so nice!
With 4 designs and 14 sizes...it is a pretty mean task!
Parents starting their children young....this is something we all like to see, isn't it?
Okay, here's a size 28 for you, little boy...
Believe it or not, our hottest selling size this round was Size 28!
So, even though the crowd was small, sales was really good.
By noon, Terry and Siew Ee had to leave. So, it was just Jessie and me. It was terribly hot and we both had a good sauna! After the third round of replenishment (of tshirts), my husband decided to stay till closing. We still ran out of stock towards the end, but never mind...next round!
Even upon closing shop, there were still people coming round to buy tshirts.
I'd like to thank our helpers this round - Terry Saw, Winnie Low, Ooi Siew Ee and Jessie Yee. We were terribly short-handed, but we survived!
We'd like to thank everyone who had contributed to our fund and purchased our tshirts today and last night.
And many thanks to the SJBA for letting us rent a booth for this event.
Stock-checking at home...by the experts!
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