MACAU (UCAN) -- Macau diocese's pastoral center for youth helped young people enrich themselves through social work in mainland China and Thailand during their summer break.

Grace Sou Sio-choi, secretary general of the Diocesan Youth Pastoral Center, told UCA News in late August that it organized the two visits to motivate young people to "find the meaning of life and achieve personal growth." The center also aimed for participants to "understand that spreading the Good News requires not only our words, but also our deeds," she added.

Sou said she believed the activities let participants understand real life and reflect on it, while also letting them learn how to respond with love and care to the needs of the poor and sick.

One of the groups went to Camillian Social Center in Rayong, Thailand. The center run by St. Camillus Foundation of Thailand serves poor HIV/AIDS patients rejected or abandoned by their families. Rayong is some 150 kilometers southeast of Bangkok.

Ako Leong Kam-kao, who led the group, told UCA News their voluntary service was more than they expected.

Before the group of 14 departed, they did not know how they would serve at the center, but Leong, a teacher and a catechumen in her twenties, chose this experience because "it seemed to be difficult and challenging."

Despite having prepared themselves psychologically, Leong admitted that they were afraid of HIV/AIDS and unsure how to care for the patients at first.

Their impression was that they would only be asked to take the patients for some walks or sunbathing, and to play with the children. Due to insufficient workers at the center, however, they also were trained and then assigned to take care of severely ill patients, including bathing and massaging them.

It was a shock when they were assigned to bathe the patients, Leong recalled, but she added that it was this "unexpected task" that made their service more intense. "We encouraged and supported each other and we gradually overcame our fear," she said, reiterating that the experience went beyond their expectations.

In a sharing session the pastoral center conducted Aug. 20 after the two groups returned to Macau, some volunteers who served the dying HIV/AIDS patients reflected on the meaning of life and the importance to cherish each day with hope.

The group spent two weeks, July 28-Aug. 9, with about 50 HIV/AIDS-affected adults and children at the center.

Around the same time, Macau diocese's Vicar General Father Pedro Chung Chi-kin led a group of 21 young Catholics aged 16-25 on a July 29-Aug. 16 visit to Taoli village in Shaanxi province. Seven years ago some other volunteers from the pastoral center had visited the village in the territory of Sanyuan diocese, 900 kilometers southwest of Beijing.

Glenda Leong Hoi-ling, a pastoral center official, told UCA News Sept. 8 that about 200 children, mostly Catholics from several Catholic villages, gathered every day in Taoli at Anle Church and the adjacent nun's convent.

In the mornings, the Macau volunteers divided the primary school students into several classes for English, geography, science, civics and hygiene lessons, the official said. The afternoons featured group games, role-playing and folk dancing, she continued.

At the Aug. 20 sharing, Taoli volunteers said they were impressed to see how the village students strove to take every opportunity they got to learn. According to Sou, the unexpected large turnout of children created problems with the distribution of teaching materials.

The pastoral center's last organized service outside Macau was in the summer of 2004. During that 10-day exposure program, 16 young Catholics did social work at a parish in East Timor.