Peace be with you, wherever you are at the
moment.
Yesterday, I was blessed to have the
opportunity to join the Firebrandz’ worship night. It was wonderful, the music,
the people, everything. Solemn, yet joyful. Simple, yet so meaningful. It was
wonderful!
The thing that I remember the most from the
event is the part where we wrote down the things that hold us from God, the
things that have been keeping our distance from Him, our sins, our fears, our desires.
It’s amazing how at first I thought I wouldn’t have written a lot, yet as time
passed by, I ended up adding more and more stuffs to my paper. Stuffs that I
didn’t really notice before, stuffs that I realized but had forgotten, stuffs I
thought were irrelevant and stuffs that I thought were already gone. All the
“stuffs”, all the “baggage” that have been dragging me down from getting closer
to Him, from completely trusting Him and from truly loving Him.
The whole session almost passed just like
that, with me stuffed up thinking more and more of my “stuffs” to write down.
Then I remembered about the question my group discussed in bible study the
night before. In Exodus 3:6, when God said to Moses: “I am the God of your
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob”, what was His
purpose? Why, after 400 years of being still and silent, He suddenly popped up
and told that to Moses, to His people? Why, when His people most certainly
already forgot about Him, about His promise, and worship other Gods instead,
that He decided to come up and say those words?
Then an answer came to my mind, almost as
if God answered the questions Himself. What He wanted to say to His people is:
“You might have forgotten, but I haven’t. You might have forsaken Me, but I
will never forsake you. I love you, My child, and I will never leave you. Trust
Me.”. On and on, His answer kept repeating in my head.
After writing down all our “stuffs”, we
then put them in a basket in front of the altar and lift them up to God, asking
Him to take them away and free us from our “stuffs”. I might forget about that
though, maybe in a year or two, or even in a few days, I might go back to those
“stuffs” and break my promises with Him. But He won’t forget. All the things we
have said in our hearts, all the things we asked Him, He’ll remember all. Even
when we forsake Him, He won’t forsake us. He won’t leave us, even though what
we have done, what we are doing, or what we will do break His heart. For we are
His children and His love for us is unconditional.
So let us pray together, I'll pray for you and you pray for me, that together we can learn to love Him unconditionally as well, to keep humble and trust Him completely, and to keep our promises to Him. To make Him a bit happier, and to repay His kindness after all the pains we have caused Him. God, please hear our prayer. In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
re·flec·tion [ri-flek-shuh] 1. the act of reflecting or the state of
being reflected.
2. an image; representation; counterpart.
3. a fixing of the thoughts on something;
careful consideration.
4. a thought occurring in consideration or
meditation.
This is probably the first
reflection that I have ever made. I am usually not a writing person, but just
for today I feel like writing what I am feeling at the moment.
This week has not been the best
one for me, especially when I compare it with last week. I still can remember
how I felt last week, being so joyful and full of spirit. Singing praise to the
Lord made me feel so alive and I felt like He was really there and guided me to
the path that He has chosen for me. The spirit filled my heart with the burning
desire to serve Him, to be His hands and feet on the earth, and to share His
joy with other people, especially those who really need it.
However, this week I have been
feeling so dry. I still can feel Him, but it’s like His presence is getting
much weaker compared to before. I feel like there is a distance between me and
Him, and the joy that was there isn’t really there anymore. Going to worship
night and talking to people didn’t seem to help as well. I wonder why.
Then I started thinking, maybe
something has changed within me, maybe I have forgotten something important,
and maybe it is time for me to go back to the very fundamental of my faith and
my ministry, and start reflecting over it again. As soon as I thought of that,
a few bible verses came to my mind one by one (although I didn’t remember the
details. I had to google and reread them again afterwards). Reading all the
verses gave me a few thought, and I would like to think that these thoughts of
mine came from the Holy Spirit as the answer to all of my questions above (in
fact, maybe even my “dry period” was so that I could arrive to these thoughts
as well, who knows?). As I came to this realization, I felt a strong urge to
share these thoughts of mine with others (which is unusual for me, as I have
mentioned above) and if you can read this, it means that it is truly God’s will
for me to share this, as I prayed to the Holy Spirit, “let it be done to me
according to Your words”.
The first verse that came into my
mind was the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians about the gift of
love (1 Corinthians 13). It is about how important love is in everything that
we do, and if love is not there then everything we do is meaningless and empty,
even if we are doing what Jesus told us to do in the bible or sacrificing
ourselves for others. I experienced myself how empty it felt when I was
bringing my singing to God as an offering but there was no love in it (because
I was preoccupied with the music stuffs, scared of making mistakes, trying to
remember the notes, etc.) so I really know how important love is in every
ministry that we do and how dangerous it is when we forget about it. That’s why
when my prayer life felt so dry, the first question that came to my mind was:
“Is there love in everything that I do? Have I been putting love as my reason
and my purpose in my interactions with God and others? Or have I just been
thinking of my interactions with them as part of my routines and as things I
have to do without really putting my feelings into it?”. My brothers and
sisters, I really regret why I didn’t ask these questions to myself more often,
why I didn’t ask myself every day, as I might have wasted my days by trying to
do all things for God and others without love. But I believe everything is a
part of God’s plan, and He knows when the best time to reveal His goodness is,
so my regret is futile. But please, pray for me, so that I will remember to ask
myself these questions every day, in the hope that I can always put love in
everything that I do for God and for others, and I pray the same thing for you
too.
Then came the second verse, which
is about the poor widow who gave what was worthless in the eyes of humans but
plentiful in the eyes of God (Mark 12: 41-44). I thought to myself: “It is not
about doing the big things, but doing everything, small or big, with big love!
(Yes, this is from Mother Theresa, not my own words)”. It is when we are giving
our all, despite our circumstances, that our offerings will be pleasing for
God. We are supposed to be fruitful, and our gifts are meant to be grown, not
just stay the same (which is the third verse that came to my mind, Matthew 25:
14-30). I remember when I did the visit to one of the detention centres for
refugees in Melbourne. Among all the sour and hopeless faces, I saw a guy with
a bright face and a great joy. He greeted me and gave me a magazine for the
refugees, with his name as the editor on it, so I thought he was a staff there.
How amazed I was, when I found out that he was also one of the refugees there,
and he has been staying there for quite a while, probably years. He didn’t look
depressed at all, or at least he tried not to, but instead he decided to lift
up the spirit of his mates there by making the magazine for the refugees, so
that they can have something to read, learn or just to get the news from outside.
When I first saw the magazine, it looked so ugly with the low-quality printing
and I was planning to throw it away once I got out of the place. But now, I
can’t believe how beautiful that magazine looks to me (I still keep it nicely
in my apartment). True, it still looks cheap, but just thinking of how much
efforts he has put into it with very limited resources and facilities, I can’t
help but admiring it. Faith, hope and love? This guy has all of them, even
more! His faith to God reminds me of Joseph, the son of Jacob from the Genesis,
and after that meeting, I thought to myself: “This guy is so full of joy, which
must have come from the Lord. That’s it! That’s the kind of faith, hope and
love I want to have! That’s the kind of Catholic I want to become!”. It was a
starting point for me, the moment when I began to find out what I want to do in
my life and what is God’s calling to me. May I never forget this, to do things
with great love, to give my all despite my situations, and in doing so that I
will multiply God’s gifts to me so that my life will be fruitful. And more
importantly, everything is for God’s glory.
The next verse that came to my
mind is Mark 12: 28-34, about the most important commandment. Jesus said love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your mind, and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbour as
yourself. The scribe agreed with everything, to love God with all the heart,
with all the understanding (mind), and with all the strength, and to love
neighbour as yourself. I have read this verse so many times, and it’s one of my
favourites. But this time, something caught my attention. I noticed how the
scribe didn’t repeat “love your God with all your soul”, and how Jesus said to
him “you are not far from the kingdom of God”. Not far! Means he’s not there
yet.
Now, I want to share my
understanding of this (yes, everything from here on is just my view), and I
believe that the understanding came from the Holy Spirit, but if I am wrong,
then by all means please correct me J. With all the heart (feeling of love),
with all the understanding (mind, theological knowledge), and with all the
strength (actions), but without all the soul, then it is not perfect yet. So
what did Jesus mean by “all your soul” then? Well, you remember the worship
night I mentioned above? I said it didn’t really help with my situation, but
actually there is something that I really remember from that night. It is when
the guest speaker talked about “being an image of God”. It is not an action, it
is not a feeling, it is not a thought, but it is about “being”. It is about a
state. It’s like it’s a part of you, something you feel natural with, something
that defines you. Then I tried to link it with my previous thought, and I came
to a conclusion: that’s what Jesus meant by “all your soul”! Loving God with
all your soul is about being an image of God itself, to truly represent God on
the earth, to reflect God’s love, joy, and peace. It is about surrendering
ourselves completely to God, to let His will be done on us and to follow His
way. This is what we are called to (Matthew 5: 13-14, about being the salt and
light to the world) and this is how we can enter the kingdom of God. So my next
question is, how do we reach that state? Well, again, this is just based on my
understanding, but I think Jesus has given a hint already. He said: “You are
not far from the kingdom of God”. See how there is no “but” there? We know
Jesus spoke only the truth and he didn’t hide anything from us (John 15:15), so
doesn’t this mean that the scribe’s response was already good and he just
needed to keep going? So I thought: “then in order to reach the state of ‘being
God’s image’, I will need to keep doing the other three first (feeling,
knowledge and act of love), then those will become a part of me naturally and I
can truly become God’s image on the earth, as humans were meant to be in the
first place, and by being so, we can truly love others just as we love
ourselves”. It is not easy, but I believe it is the way, and that is what I am
meant to do from now on. That’s why I really need all your prayers at the
moment, and I will also pray for you all, so that we can be His hands and feet
on earth, that we can answer His call to us in our lives and that all of us can
be true God’s image, just as He meant us to be in the first place. And lastly,
I want you to pray so that I can always have the humility as the Lord’s
servant, for I am truly unworthy and what I can do and what I know are so
limited, but He made me worthy, and He will give me everything I need to answer
His call. For I am saved not because I am worthy, but because Jesus has died
for me on the cross. He gave me grace not because I have done anything worthy
of it, but because He is the loving God.
Sorry for the long read, but I am
really glad that I can share this with you, my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Lastly, please listen to this song as well. This is the song that was playing
in my head at the same time those verses came to my mind, and also the song
that I was listening to while writing this reflection. Hopefully God will touch
your heart with this song, as He has touched mine.
I'm a little late with this, but wanted to share some Easter
time thoughts. Specifically the mixture of divinity and humanity within the
Passion.
In particular, two events always hit me hard during Easter: Jesus
in the garden and Jesus during the crucifixion.
Jesus in the garden exhibits the most basic of human
emotions - fear,
doubt, and loneliness. These are feelings we all go through at some time in our
lives.
However, for me, the divinity comes in how He places His
faith and trust in God’s path. Even though it is the path less travelled, He
embraces it. Thy will be done. It has me aspiring to both trust and embrace God’s
plan for me.
Jesus during the crucifixion cut such a lone figure, standing
against a sea of hate, anger, and indifference.
Through this, He maintained His dignity. He preached that
those who live with anger in their hearts will be torn apart by it. He has shown
divinity by preaching love and forgiveness under the most difficult of
situations.
This always moves me.
It has me aspiring to act with grace when faced with the
difficult situations of my life.
Finally, aspiration and action are different but
inexplicably linked. Coming out of Easter has me wanting to walk the path as
well as learn the path. But in order to do one, we must devote ourselves to the
other.
I stayed home from work today so I watched a lot of TV. They were showing this Christian movie in the afternoon called the Grace Card. The movie is mainly about this policeman who loses his son in an accident and for the next 17 years his life is filled with bitterness and hatred. There was even an element of racism as the person who killed his son was an African American. So he really hated African Americans. His family is falling apart, his surviving son starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. In the end his son gets shot and needs a kidney, and it is his African American police partner who gives his son one of his kidneys. In the end the son is saved, and the first guy who killed his elder son comes to ask for forgiveness after being released from prison. The movie ends with a scene in church where the police officer who donated his kidney (who is also part time pastor) is speaking to his congregation about justice and grace. How the grace card came about was his great great grandfather used to be a slave, and one day the master gathered all his slaves together and asks for their forgiveness for treating them badly and he released them all. This grace card was written by the great great grandfather to his master, “I promise to pray for you every day, ask for forgiveness, grant you the same and be your friend always.”
What the pastor had said about justice and grace struck me. We all know grace as a gift from God, Ephesians 2:8 - For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God--.
What struck me was that when we think of grace we think of God, but what about grace given by man, to man? This movie implied that very often in our lives we seek justice, when something happens we are only satisfied if justice is served. But it takes a bigger person to have the grace to forgive, without the need for justice. It did make me think, will I ever be able to have the grace to forgive without seeking justice? It started me thinking about that doctor that caused my dad's death, have I forgiven him? Will I be able to forgive him? I did think if he felt sorry and contrite and stood in front of us asking for forgiveness, I will be able to forgive. But what if he didn't feel sorry? What if he still pretended not to know? Am I able to forgive a person knowing he or she is not sorry? It is by God's grace that we are saved, and there is no conditional grace that He gives us, that we need to be good or be sorry or perform lots of charity work. As long as we believe, we are saved. So if we want to be Christlike, we have to give grace freely too, no conditions, no judgement, even without justice. So to everyone out there, “I promise to pray for you every day, ask for forgiveness, grant you the same and be your friend always.” Amen.
I've been on a 2 week break overseas - a break from not just work, but also STAY... I'm not foreign to being busy having worked, studied, team sport, maintaining relationships before but STAY or ministry has been one area where the workload has increased. So busy that I haven't had a chance to write here since the beginning of the year...
So its time to provide an update from my perspective on how STAY is going.
A STAY member sent me this video which can summarise how STAY has grown over the past year in 3 minutes.
If STAY Cell Group is a measure of how many people there are then STAY has just over 50 people, up from about 20 at the end of last year and just one or 2 a year ago. Its growth in numbers was phenomenal itself last year, but it has continued to grow and the growth has not stopped. It gave me great joy each week to keep adding a person to the STAY Whatsapp group which is not used anymore because it can't support groups of over 50...
Its a nice problem to have so many people coming to Cell Group each Tuesday and available for other ministry but too difficult for me to lead them alone. So I have formed leaders for the ministries and brought them together to form a leadership team with me. They are:
Prayer - Andrew (Pray for STAY) Cell Group - Pat Outreach - Nicole (Friends of Refugees) Worship - Aaron (Firebrandz) Choir - Karl (Firebrandz Choir) Dance - Christabel (Firebrandz Dance)
My role in STAY has changed from keeping STAY alive, then looking after its members and now growing new leaders. I am now doing the role that my predecessor Kenny spent much of his time with myself and previous leaders. I have learnt much from Kenny, STAY and from others about leadership but at times I feel unqualified to mentor about leadership because I myself am not good at it. I've gotten better but its so hard. I guess this was why it was always said to me is that the church lacks good leaders - they are hard to find if they are born and its hard to train for... Now its my turn to take on this responsibility... A new challenge!
As leaders we have met together a few times but as my poor experience tells me, its hard to gather lots of people together for a meeting and 7 of us is large enough. There was no real formula to how I chose some of the leaders... some were natural because of their expertise, some were calculated risks (and not so calculated) and others were inexperienced or unexpected. My history of choosing leaders hasn't been great - I don't pray much about it, but try to pray while we're in it. The group is diverse and should produce enough healthy conflict to make sure we act in the best interests of God, the ministry and everyone in STAY.
One thing that seems to be constant in the last half year is what I could call a 'Midas touch'. Everything STAY seems to get involved in seems to turn to gold... Its quite amazing to see because God had to have a hand in all the things we do for it to be so successful. I'll see if I can explain with all the ministries below:
Pray for STAY
The most important ministry, because if there's only one thing I want to do in STAY that is to get young people to pray (vision for STAY is to bring God to young people). Prayer allows God to work through us/STAY to bring the success and success is God's responsiility. Andrew has been faithful in leading this each Monday evening over Skype which is timed so that we can pray for the next day's cell group amongst other events that require prayers. Andrew has also been diligent in lifting up all the individual intentions of all STAY members of which there are many. I would not assess progress based on turn out which is around 5 per Monday but by how God works through the other ministries and that has been nothing short of amazing --
STAY Cell Group
Of all the leaders I have known Pat the longest from the first STAY retreat in 2011. The vast majority of people in STAY are completely new to me as I've only met them through STAY over the last year. Cell group is so big now that we are using every room we can in St. Joseph's Hall (including the hallway...) to split into 5 smaller groups. Choosing a leader for Cell Group was hard - its arguably the most time consuming role and most involved with the individuals in STAY on a week to week basis. Pat was a left field choice, she has the passion and commitment plus the pastoral skills but no demonstratable (at least unknown to me) leadership skills. I have been guiding her and she has taken this role by the reins and just ran with. The group is now running an 8 week course on elementry reading of the bible which has through word of mouth attracted interest from other groups outside STAY. Cell Group faces the problem of becoming less intimate and controllable as it grows so this will be a challenge for Pat and the other leaders to make sure that cell group's primary purpose and attraction doesn't deteriorate - fellowship.
Friends of Refugees
STAY's outreach ministry has continued to grow even though I thought it could not and was reluctant to because it was big enough as it was. Moving Day moved quickly from 1 truck in January to 3 in March which meant organising 3 times as many volunteers, donations and refugee families than before. Managing this by myself would be impossible without the help of Nicole and the organising team of 3 others who have been active with the outreach month to month. Nicole was reluctant in accepting leadership as she feels unqualified and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of risk and responsibility of leading a group like Friends of Refugees. I have had to continue leading Friends of Refugees and it will probably consume most of my ministry/management time - it was my original position after all...
Needless to say, the organising team with Nicole has been instrumental in allowing the outreach to grow and STAY members have been active in volunteering. The more it grows, the more we can reach out to befriend more refugees and also allow God to reach young people through service.
Firebrandz
Firebrandz has an agenda independent but not separate to STAY as it is led by Aaron and tied to the ICPE group. STAY and Firebrandz work together and are synomous with each other and has contributed to each others growth and success. STAY has brought people to Firebrandz events and Firebrandz events has brought people to STAY events. Its core activity is a monthly worship night which is held on the last Wednesday of each month which brings young people together for Praise and Worship and Catechesis from a guest speaker. The parish is also invited to the Worship nights and on average about 75 people would attend. Its almost a copy of the Friday Catechesis nights which STAY used to run and as a newish ministry they have started requesting for feedback through forms to get a better idea of what the community would like. There are also plans for an in house (or more 'in-church') retreat in June. STAY should organise a retreat towards the end of the 2nd half of the year as well.
Aaron is a well formed leader and informally he oversees the other 'Firebrandz' ministries -
Firebrandz Choir
The choir was a new initative for the start of this year with STAY having enough people to be able to support a choir and maintain our other ministry commitments. The choir now has over 20 people which is about half of the STAY members which I see as a good but also challenging problem. They don't all fit in the choir stalls but the choir has drawn people who would not have otherwise thought themselves as good singers/musicians to serve the church in this way. They are led by Karl who was one of several possible choices of leaders and is led by their well trained conductor in Aaron. Aaron was undoubtedly the most obvious choice to lead the choir, but it was also an opportunity to develop a new leader that may have few of the talents and skills and see God work through them.
The choir started with serving at one mass a month and now has been requested and has capacity for 2 masses a month which is the same as the regular choirs in St. Augustine's. The choir practices every other week usually the day before their service. It won't be long before they will serve at Firebrandz worship night and perhaps even weddings...
Firebrandz Dance
This largely unknown and rarely practiced ministry is the initiative of Christabel who had grew up in New Zealand learning it within her family and community. I have not been closely involved but I know we have something very special in our midst. From what others tell me, there are about 10 girls taking part most if not all except Christabel without much dance experience. Thus there is a learning curve involved and much of it was about the concept of dancing for God (rather than for others). There was plans to have the ministry debut in July during Firebrandz Worship Night first anniversary but we managed to bring that forward with a somewhat abruptly planned Stations of the Cross event which our parish priest asked the group to host. Along the with the choir, the dance ministry helped the passion of Christ come alive to those that attended the event. I had seen liturgical dance once before but the 2 dances performed during the Stations event gave me a glimpse of more amazing things to come. This ministry will likely be the most video taped of all of STAY's ministries =)
Other Notes
I will need to keep other adhoc events coming into STAY such as the Stations of the Cross to give our growing number of members active, to create an extra sense of belonging and importance in being part of the group. Some activities we said we'd get involved in (but may not have actioned yet) is:
- Services in the Church - readers, collectors, acolytes, Eucharistic ministers
- Fellowship in the Church - fundraising BBQ for parishoners, other church events
- Socials - Events organised by the Archdiocese like Indoor Soccer Competition, dinner nights out
- Reflecting by writing in this blog
A most amazing thing about STAY is not just the number of people now that are being drawn to the group but also their willingness to help and participate. In past, it always felt like a struggle just to get people just to help that I simplified things for them to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. I probably wasn't trusting enough not humble and courageous enough to ask for help especially when few seemed to want to get involved. There is a great energy in the group that has continued wanting to seek and know God, and they'll do whatever it takes (like studying a book together) to give the Holy Spirit a chance to work through them and their friends. All of this could not have been done without the Holy Spirit's work in the group and in the hearts of those who we have reached. So all praise and honour goes to God for being the true victor and source of success in this group.
Last Sunday was Moving Day and as
usual the trucks left early to pick up donations from all over Melbourne.
Trucks and sorters assembled at around 2.00 to head off in convoy to deliver to
about thirty families. My team headed north with eight houses to visit.
There had been a last minute
addition to our list and unfortunately by the time we arrived there was little
left in our van. They were a family of five from Iran, living in a house with
nothing but a baby's cot. The mother sat on the floor nursing her four day old
baby, having left hospital the day before, following a caesarean delivery.
Nasser, her husband greeted us with open arms as we provided a table, chairs,
couch and a small mattress for their seven year old daughter. The little girl's
response was to ask for one more thing - a bed for her mum to sleep on.
By Regina Rayan In the beginning I asked myself, what should I sacrifice for lent this year. Typical question my mother would ask me. I decided to abstain from meat. I would only be having vegetables and seafood. Then I thought to myself, I need to do something that would affect my inner spirit as well. So I prayed and allowed God to decide for me. After all, I am doing it for him. The word "make-up" kept ringing in my head. I tried denying it. But the word remained.
So I decided to abstain from any make-up for 40 days. I never thought how tempted I would feel during those days. But I remained firm on my decisions. I remember having a huge zit on my nose when I never usually get acne/zits. Not being able to cover it up with make up was hard. But I decided to embrace that zit. I literally took selfies with it and was proud of it.
Other than just fasting, I felt lent this time round was more intense. I felt more involved both physically and spiritually. I started my faith journey by experiences and situations I've been in. I grew closer to God through joy and sufferings. I never knew how to communicate with God. After a retreat last year, I decided to build a little family of my own. This family of mine had always and will always be there for me. Jesus being my brother, Mother Mary being my mama, God being my papa, the Holy Spirit being my teacher and the guardian angel being my friend.
This made me feel more comfortable just communicating with them. I remember how I've always felt my heart wanting to go to church often just to feel the warmth. Like it was my second home. Ever since I decided to have this relationship, I needed to put my heart and soul into it. Every relationship needed effort and sincerity. This Lent allowed me to measure that sincerity. I surrendered all plans to Him. I realized the sincerity of this relationship during the Good Friday mass at St Augustine's. When the cross was passed around, I was more worried on how will I be able to handle the weight of that cross. As soon as it passed over me and I barely used my energy to lift it, I realized my life has always been like that - all my crosses has been lifted up by Him. With His energy I become stronger not with my own.
I literally bursted out in tears when the cross passed over me. I was fine a minute ago but my heart felt so heavy. I wept like as if one of my own loved one had died that day. The feeling you get losing someone you love so much is never the best. My mind was confused cause I continuously cried. That intense feeling sealed my relationship with Jesus and I knew I loved Him more than anything.
I have always doubted His love. Wondering how can someone love you so much? One night not being able to sleep, a bible verse was stuck in my head. He answered me, "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NIV)" And my journey now continues but I'm not walking alone. I know that this time round when I fall or get hurt, His love would never fail on me. His love is the antidote to all my sickness and fears.
This month's Moving Day was a
perfect example of not letting one's spirit be dampened by the weather! It
rained buckets all around, the moving goes on. The team's commitment for a good
cause was surely tested with delays and bad weather, but they all stuck around
with much resolve, for which the FORM organisers are truly thankful.
Not only was it raining all
around Melbourne, but it was also the first time FORM has conducted Moving Day
without its founder, Jack. Needless to say the four ladies were apprehensive
and thought that it would be impossible for moving day to happen without him,
but it turned out to be an amazing day!
Below are some of the experiences
from the volunteers that day:
"I felt very helpless when I
arrived to find that the mother had recently been discharged from the hospital
and was sleeping on the floor (AFTER HAVING A C-SECTION). I assumed Red Cross
would have at least provided mattresses. However there were non in sight. Worst
feeling is having a 7y/o child happily asking me to provide a bed for her
parents. I was crying inside but trying to stay cheerful for her because she
was such a happy kid. Her dad seemed confused - as was I after having seen the
reality of the situation in their home."
- Jessica Lee (North Team), on
visiting a family in Thomastown
"When we got to the last
house, we experienced very mixed feelings, the sadness of a completely empty
house and on the other hand, the joy that we had lots of items to give! the joy
was definitely the predominant feeling! It was a family with 2 kids, a 16 year
old boy and a 7 year old girl. They had just moved to this new house the very
same Sunday we visited them. We left them a king sized bed and mattress, a
queen size bed and mattress, a futon mattress, a desk, 2 sofa set, a big and
almost new fridge, a big Flat Screen TV, a TV unit, a coffee table, blankets
and linen, a toaster and lots of kitchen stuff and some clothes. This must have
been the largest donation to a single family I have witnessed so far"
- Karlita (West Team)
"It was a frantic day for us
rushing from house to house, but one family of four comprising the parents and
two children stood out as he shared with us his life stories back in Pakistan
and his decision/sacrifice to come to Australia as a refugee. The conversation
led to tears as he felt helpless, not able to provide for his family with the
restrictions of his visa and his current sickness"
