Charities Week - Tough times....loving hearts

Image by mbgrigby via Flickr

Despite the difficult economic situations, the collection for Charities 2009 showed that Catholics do have a heart of love. It shows that we do what we preach; i.e. to love your neighbour and reach out to help others and share what we have...

A touching note was received by someone who donated $6 in cash: "I would love to share more but as of the moment I can't. Will send more once I get a job. Hope this helps a little. Thanks!".

Although the number of donations envelops fall slightly, those who do give actually gave more than they did last year. A total of $ 4,488,132.00 was collected as compared to $ 4,386,405.00 in 2008!

Donors contributed to Charities Week in the spirit of solidarity, recognising that in these hard times, it is even harder for those who are dependent on financial assistance from the carious charity organisations.

Funds raised from the Charities Week 2009 will support the work of Caritas Singapore and its member organisations such as the Catholic Welfare Services, Family Life Society, Catholic AIDS Response Effort, Morning Star Community Services, Marine Parade Family Centre, Roman Catholic Prison Ministry and the Archdiocean Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People....

God bless all who gave generously to Charities Week 2009!

Religious groups agree tolerance is vital in multi-racial society

Image via Wikipedia

The church may not water down its stand on homosexuality but hopes for better understanding when engaging the issue with other groups, according to the Bishop of the Anglican Church in Singapore.

Why did he has to say this? Well, this was a continuation from one of his senior pastor who used the pulpit to garner support for some of his church members during the recent AWARE saga.

The Bishop of the Anglican Church, John Chew, said there needs to be some fine tweaking of the way it is handled.

He said: "We have to recalibrate our perceptions, our understanding of the common space and how should we engage and how should we address one another. But the most important thing is that in the sense we are uniquely Singapore."

You can read about it here.

Well he is certainly right as many Christians has been pushing their own agenda without regards to truth and faith they preached. And more importantly, with no regards to feelings of people from other faith.

After all, all Christ wants from us is love each other as He has love us. And hopefully, Christians will heed the call of the bishop.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Anglican Church and AWARE (searching4god.blogspot.com)

Anglican Church and AWARE

Image via Wikipedia

On Thursday, Dr John Chew, president of the National Council of Churches of Singapore or NCCS (the umbrella Christian group), issued a statement to selected media calling for churches to "all step back and give AWARE space to settle its own matters".

The NCCS’s statement said among other things, that it did not condone the use of the pulpit to get involved in the controversy.

Senior pastor of the Church Of Our Saviour Derek Hong has issued a public apology for using the pulpit to give backing to the Association of Women for Action and Research's (AWARE) executive committee in their dispute with the group's previous leadership. Incidentally, Dr John Chew is also the archbishop of the Anglican church and pastor Hong’s Church Of Our Saviour is in Dr John’s diocese.

You can read about it at "Pastor apologises for misusing pulpit".

A little information and latest update on AWARE.

Ms Josie Lau and her exco have stepped down from Association of Women for Action and Research or AWARE in short. Ms Lau and some other exco came into power at AWRE in a hostile manner less than 2 months ago.

6 members of the exco are later revealed to be from an Anglican Church Of Our Saviour. This also spark concerns from some as AWARE is a secular NGO and religion should not be allowed to encroach it.

These are some of the concerns that people at the recent AGM said :

1. One Malay Muslim woman said she was not comfortable with an-all Christian and all-Chinese group representing a secular group like AWARE. And members of the Christian faith stood up and said the action of the new Exco set back constructive dialogue between Christians and secularists in Singapore.
2. "We are here because we were deeply troubled by how this executive committee came to power. We are here because we are deeply troubled by the usurpation of civic space, and the lack of respect for the values of pluralism, democracy that this new executive committee has demonstrated," said one member of the audience.
3. "AWARE is about inclusiveness, AWARE in helping women, helps everybody, male and female. And whatever their sexual orientation can be, it does not matter, because they are first and foremost a person. A human being and that's what AWARE is about," said another.

Although former AWARE president Lau said that : “Race, religion were never an issue. We welcome women of all races, culture, religion and come and serve on the subcommittee," clearly, the crowd was not won over.

Another sticking point that was revealed was the fact that under Ms Lau, AWARE spend $90,000 in the last month since they took power some two months ago while under the constitution, the exco is not allowed to spend more than S$20,000 and if they do, they must consult members.

NTUC FairPrice Foundation doing God's work

The efforts of a small group of Singapore volunteers who help newly-arrived migrant workers received a huge boost on Monday.

NTUC FairPrice Foundation donated S$300,000 to the Archdiocesan Commission for Pastoral Care of Migrant & Itinerant People or ACMI. It is the largest donation ACMI has received in its ten-year history.

Read all about it here.

This donation send a message to us all that we should not forget our neighbour because when you do it to the least of one of my brothers, you do it to Me.

As Seah Kian Peng, NTUC FairPrice's managing director (group business), said: "Our priority is to the local workers first, but at the same time, we do not forget the foreign workers. And today's project is an example (of) how foreign workers are also an important group of the population that deserve our help."

If you too would like to help, you can contact ACMI and their website can be found at http://www.catholic.org.sg/acmi/

God bless you!

1035 to join the Catholic Church at Easter

Image via Wikipedia

The Rite of Election was held over the weekend of Feb 28 and Mar 1. This year, 1035 will join the Catholic Church in Singapore during Easter.

Let's pray for these elects and candidates as they continue their RCIA journey towards Easter Vigil when they will become Catholics.

Charities see spike in take-up rate of free meals

Image via Wikipedia

This is an interesting article taken from Channelnewsasia website. It is wonderful to know that there are love and charity in other faith and also how people from different faith can come together to share the teaching of the Gospel and to bring warm and joy to the needy within our community.

QUOTE:

While many may have been feasting during this festive period, those who cannot afford it have not been forgotten either.

The Buddhist Lodge has been giving out food, buffet-style, every day for the past 30 years.

Since the economic downturn, it has seen more people showing up -- at least a 35 per cent increase in numbers since the beginning of the year, with a significant number of them being foreign workers.

The Lodge serves up on average 1400 meals daily, and this number can go up to 6000 over the weekend.

Despite the downturn, the Lodge says people have not cut back on their donations, and this allows the Lodge to pass on excess to other charities.

One such beneficiary is the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Upper Serangoon.

The church started giving out meals from April this year. It distributes packed meals, ensuring no one goes hungry in the community.

UNQUOTE

Let's not forget to do our part as we celebrate and party to welcome 2009.....

<<<<<< HAPPY NEW YEAR ! >>>>>>