Peter Young came from U.K. to Malaysian in 1954. He became a Malaysian citizen in February 1964 and married Betty Meadows in August the same year. They have a daughter, Joanna (married to Mark Ferris) and two grandsons. He has served as a teacher in St. Gabriel’s School from 1958-1958 and Honorary Pastor of St. Gabriel’s Church from 1951 – 1980. He was General Secretary of Scripture Union from 1970-1978. From 1979-1991, Mr.Young was Executive Director of Malaysian CARE. On his retirement he became a Director of Dignity and Services, an advocacy movement for persons with learning disabilities. He has also been Director of SHELTER since 2002 and was appointed Chairman on 1 January 2004.

Peter Young speaks about:

Restoring the hurting

Abuse (deep hurts or wounds) can take many forms. Some of these include . . .

1. Physical abuse

2. Emotional abuse

3. Sexual abuse

4. Neglect

Incidences of RAPE are escalating

In 2003, 1,479 rape cases* were reported (almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg).

From the total of 1,479 victims, 768 (nearly 50%) involved children.

Children have two main traits – CHILDLIKE and CHILDISH. I would like to elaborate on the first one. The childlike trait includes trust and dependence. A child should be able to live in a home where the parents/guardians can be trusted can be depended upon to provide the basic necessities of life. When a child is deprived of this trust and dependence, there is abuse. Of course, in some cases of abuse, no blame can be attached to the parents/guardians.

Most of the children/teenagers, who are residents in the five SHELTER homes have suffered from one or more of the four abuses mentioned above. They are hurting and in some cases, the wounds are very deep. The Board, staff and volunteers of SHELTER are committed to offer these children/teenagers (and also their families, if possible) both special care and special counselling so that their trust and dependence may be restored. We are most grateful to our financial supporters and many other friends who are joining with us in this God-given mission of healing the hurting.