Gift Giving 2009

The natural calamities that struck our parish last year led us to knock at the doors of the faithful in our community to help and be generous for the victims in our parish. They responded generously and some even went out of their comfort zone and volunteered for the actual re-packing and distribution of relief.

Once again in our simbang gabi we asked the faithful to be generous for our traditional gift giving for the less privilege. We didnt expect much because of the help they had already provided on the victims of Typhoon Ketsana (locally named 'Ondoy) but somehow we were still hopeful that the traditional gift giving push through.

But as the nine (9) days novena Mass on the advent ended, we found that most of the churchgoers were bighearted. As we were repacking the offered gifts, we discovered that most of the offererd gifts for gift giving were not the usual noddles but canned goods, coffee and powdered milk. Others provided sack of rice. Our chrisian community continues to surprise us of their generosity in helping especially when they had already given much on the recent relief effort.

This time we went to Sitio Sumilang (one of the most remote community in our parish) last December 27, 2009. As we arrived at Sitio Sumilang we were greeted by the smiles of the people of that simple community. We were jam-packed in the small chapel of Sitio Sumilang but again the church workers and faithful of Sitio Sumilang had fun that day. They received their bag of groceries and the children their chocolate,candies and cookies.

We thank the christian community who offered gifts for our traditional gift giving last advent season. We, christians can only be like Christ if we also become blessing to others.