Back in the years before the COVID pandemic, we in our family celebrated our birthdays by spending a Sunday morning helping out in the feeding outreach program of our home parish in Paranaque - the Ascension of Our Lord Parish (AOLP). This was a practice started in our family by my wife more than a decade ago and we have gotten the hang of it. For me personally, such a practice is a great source of helper's high.
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| With my wife and son in the 2015 feeding program in our parish. |
Now, my wife is in heaven already but the appetite to engage in such a voluntary and altruistic activity remains strong in the family. That is why when my fellow lector Gee informed me this year that our parish has resumed its feeding program after a couple year hiatus due to the pandemic, we in the family looked forward to getting back to volunteering one Sunday.
This Sept 22, we finally got back to resuming the good work. The Sunday feeding program is now called "Jesus Cares" and it is a collaboration of 3 hard working groups in AOLP: Commission on Service and Human Promotion (COSHP); Commission on Catechesis and Religious Education (COMCARE); and Commission on Basic Ecclesial Community and Animation of New Evangelization (COMBANE).
Joining me on that Sunday were my son Marcel, my sister Leila and her son Israel. It was a joyful event for us, especially that Leila is finally able to rejoin us in this activity after her more than 6 years of unjust detention. Back in 2016, she was with us in the feeding program. For the Sept 22 activity, it was a belated celebration of her birthday (Aug 27) and mine (Sept 11). Happy to help a dozen volunteers feed more than four dozens of children from the various Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) in our parish.
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| Group photo with the kids. |
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| Giving a short talk to the kids, expressing how happy we are to be with them on that Sunday morning. |
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| Leila leading in the distribution of the lunch pack to the kids. |
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| Group photo with the parish volunteers. Leila, Marcel, Israel and me are wearing the Mangrove Loving Penguin (MLP) shirts. |
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| The kids enjoying the fried chicken and the cupcake. |
Volunteering for a parish activity that feeds the children and brings the community closer together is such a source of happiness for those involved. I am reminded by the wise words of H. Jackson Brown, Jr. , the American author best known for his inspirational book, Life's Little Instruction Book.
Yes indeed. Those wise words ring true.
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