Sunday school

I live in Madinnagoda. It’s in the Kolonnawa Secretarial Division in Colombo. In my village, there is a temple called the Sri Suramyaramaya. In this temple, there is a Sunday School. It’s known as the Sri Nanda daham school.

The temple is situated in Sri Nanda Mawatha and that is why the daham school is identified by that name.

There are about 350 students, 26 teachers and five Theras in the daham school. There are six buildings in the temple and two of them are used to hold Sunday school.

The Nayaka Thera is Dodamgolle Pangnasara and the head mistress of our Sunday school is Mrs. Indrani Costa. There are 28 prefects. I am also a prefect in our Sunday school. There are Grades from 1 to 13. The lower Grades are from one to six and the upper Grades are from seven to thirteen.

There are many programmes conducted in our Sunday School. Some of them are Prefects’ Day, Teachers’ Day, felicitation, Buddhist Society, the annual prize-giving and Mihindu Perahera. All the students come to the school to observe Sil on Vesak Poya Day and on other poya days too. The meals given at the interval to students are provided free in our Sunday School. All the students enjoy the meal very much.

Every morning we worship the Buddha at Sunday School. I like to go to Sunday School. We all have to protect our Sunday School.

Uvini Utthama Edirisinghe, Grade 6,Sri Nanda Daham School,Madinnagoda,Rajagiriya.

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My ambition

Everybody has an ambition in life. A person without an ambition in life is useful to none. I do not want to have excess wealth or power. I want to serve the poor in this country and the best way to do this is to be a doctor. I want to help the poor by giving my time and treatment freely to them. I want to be a doctor who is kind and helpful to all, especially the poor.

I am still a student in grade five. But by being a doctor someday I could help the poor, the aged and the orphaned who are ill. I can visit their small homes in the villages to give them medicines.

If I succeed in my ambition, I shall do my very best to be a good, dedicated doctor. I will try my best to avoid becoming a victim of greed, jealousy and selfishness.I would like to dedicate myself to a group of doctors doing social service and try to entice others to become social workers like Mother Theresa.

Soujanyaah Karunanithy, Grade 5,Bt/Vincent Girls’ High School, Batticaloa.

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A sense of commitment

Having a sense of commitment is a very valuable quality. It means that whatever we do, we do it with a lot of dedication and interest without being selfish.

Today most of us haven’t this precious quality. When it comes to work at school, office or even in our homes, this is a good quality to have. When we do any work for our parents, teachers or neighbours, we should do so with dedication. Then we can get good results, happiness and a good name too.

For example, a doctor’s life is not a very easy one. He/she shoulders a lot of responsibilities. He or she has to go on ward rounds, check on the patients’ progress and prescribe medicines for them. Not only that, he/she has to conduct regular clinics for those who are ill to get treatment. Doctors work with a sense of commitment.

Teachers too have a responsible job to do. He or she has to go to school early in the morning and teach the children various subjects including lessons in life. She/he earns to fend for the family. She/he must work with a lot of dedication to ensure that the students get a good education.

There were many great people in the past who worked with a sense of commitment in Sri Lanka. They were Dr. C.W.W. Kannangara, Senarath Paranavithana, Marie Musaeus Higgins among others. They went through hard times, sacrificed a lot and worked with commitment to improve our small, but beautiful country. The results are there for us to see today.

Today most people work with selfishness. They don’t do their work properly. They rob many items such as papers, pens, books and rulers from the work places. Some schoolchildren do the same.

They rob chalk, pencils, pens and erasers from the classrooms. They don’t pay attention to lessons and get a good education from school. We must stop behaving like that. Instead we should follow these great persons, respect them and admire their service.

Hereafter, whatever I do, I promise to do it with a sense of commitment. I want to give up my selfishness and bad qualities. You should also do this and cultivate this precious quality of commitment.

S.K. Nimeshi Wathsala Dewapriya, Grade 9 - E, Christ Church Girls’ College,Baddegama.
 

Those whom I respect most

I make it a point to respect all those who are elder than me whether they are elder than me by one year or one day, I respect them all.

In every religion, it is said that we must respect those who are elder than us. I respect my parents and teachers mostly.

Parents are the ones who brought us into this world and take good care of us and guide us. Like our parents, teachers educate us and guide us by showing many things which should and shouldn’t be done by us. We can’t separate them in our lives because they have a common goal and are of equal importance to us.

Our parents look after and take care of us at home and the teachers look after and take care of us at school. All of us should first learn to respect our parents and our teachers because they take good care of us and help us succeed in life by giving us an education, food, shelter, good facilities and so on.

If there are no parents and teachers, we cannot be educated and face the challenges in our lives. We cannot become good citizens. Since it is evident that parents and teachers are the ones who do everything for us, we must first learn to respect them.

They are a big gift given to us by God. These are the people I respect the most in my life.

M. Rifkhan Rasheed, Gr. 11A, Sailan International School,Negombo.
 

The marathon race

The marathon race is one of the best and the most important events in the Olympic Games.

It is considered a test of rigorous training and human endurance. In the marathon race the athletes have to complete a distance of 42.195 kilometres (or 26 miles, 385 yards). This distance is equal to the distance covered by the Athenian messenger, Pheidippides, in 490 B.C.

According to the story, Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory of Athens over Persia and died on the spot after delivering the message.

The winner of the marathon race is considered the greatest runner in the world. Athletes from African countries like Ethiopia have dominated this event in the recent past.

Abeba Bikila from Ethiopia won the gold medal for the marathon in the Rome Olympics in 1960 and Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

No other marathon runner has won this event twice, consecutively. Although many other runners have won gold medals in Olympic marathons since then, Abeba Bikila still stands out as a legendary marathon runner.

He has been hailed as the greatest marathon runner of all time. When asked why he ran barefooted, Bikila said “I wanted the world to know that my country Ethiopia has always won with determination and heroism”.

Inoka Priyadarshani, Grade 9, Kgl/Ambepussa M.V.,Warakapola.
 

My sweet cousin

My name is Ashwini Chandrakumar. I am from Kandy. I am 11 years old. I have a little cousin brother, named Venujan Kavishker. He celebrated his first birthday in a grand way on October 2 this year. He is a nice and good boy. He likes to play with me. I love him very much and I wish he has a very happy and prosperous life.

Ashwini Chandrakumar, Grade 6,Lexicon International School,Kandy.
 

My new costume

My favourite hero is Spiderman. So, I wanted to make a costume like Spiderman’s. My mother and I went shopping to buy red and blue material to make the costume. My mother painted the spider and the web in black colour on the red coloured material. Then my mother sewed the costume. After the costume was made I wore it and put a Spiderman’s mask on my face. And now, here I am! I like my costume very much.

Anil Panditha Koralage, Grade 3-S, St. Peter’s College, Colombo 4.
 

A tribute to My M-O-T-H-E-R

I love my mother with all my heart
My mother is whom I adore
The love she gives me is priceless
The encouragement she gives, no one can give

M stands for the motherly love that she gives
And O stands for all other things that she gives me
T stands for the tender love she gives all her children
H stands for her kind and gentle heart
E stands for everything she gives her children
And R stands for the roses and respect she deserves

My M-O-T-H-E-R is a strong woman
Her biggest wish is for us to learn
The amazing truth of Jesus
And experience His mighty love.

Tabitha Abraham,Grade 7D,Bishop’s College, Colombo.
 

Drought

The trees cry
Birds fly to another place
All are unhappy
It is drought

The people feel hot
They run and find water

Everywhere it’s dirty
It is drought

Why do we have this problem
Think a few times
Oh! because of bad reasons
It is drought

Nature’s punishment for us
Yes, we must accept this
After that we’ll learn to
love nature
It would be good for our lives.

B. S. N. Maheshika Chandramali, Grade 10, Ku/Thiragama M.V.,Kohilegedara.