Yuletide Smiles

On our 8th year of joyously celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus and lovingly honoring our beloved angel-daughter Maia, we held our annual Christmas party for the less-fortunate children of the Holy Spirit Parish last December 24, 2016 at the MHHA Multi-Purpose hall.

Around 50 kids with parents and guardians were treated to a 2-hour of fun and enjoyment with challenging games, a family-band song rendition, a lively magic show, lots of raffle prizes and goodie take-homes.

Once again our sincere family thanks to all those who make this special day for the kids:
1. Maribon Catering of Kuya Rommel and Ate Norie for the program preparations and delicious snacks.
2. EU3 Sounds of Jben and Chique for the envigorating lights and sounds. 
3. Barangay China for the raffle, games and goodie give-aways.
4. VROOOM team for lots of boy and girl toys for games and participating in the program.
5. Tita Myrna Annudin, widow and board member of MHHA for the cash raffle prizes.
6. All family members and volunteers who selflessly yet quietly helped in their small ways.

But above all, we give thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the source of all our shared blessings - our time, our talent and our treasures.

Why are we homeschooling?

First Communion

Homeschooling, presently, has gained quite a solid base following after many years of being frowned upon and misconstrued as a sort of deficient learning method. We clearly remember before how well-meaning friends and family members around us either giving us their blank stare of disbelief or an upfront unsolicited advice to bring our son to a traditional school whenever we told them that he is being home-schooled.  

Looking back, our home-school journey started with painful a family tragedy. Back in 2008, while we were living overseas, we lost our 22 month-old daughter. We were devastated. But with God’s healing and loving support of people around us, we slowly picked-up our broken hearts and discerned how to move forward with our eldest son Zek who was barely 4 years old at that time. Wanting to spend more time with him, intent in sharing our own and shared family values and for lack of any Catholic educational institution in our host country, we searched for options, found a few choices and ultimately decided to home-school our son.

We him enrolled into one of the pioneer-provider of home schooling in the Philippines, the Catholic Filipino Academy (www.catholicfilipinoacademy.com) from Pre-school up until Grade 6.

We had a great time learning lessons together, making it fun and creative. Despite living in a foreign land, Zek learned a lot about our Filipino culture specially our religious belief while taking advantage in learning other things around him. We use lots of Legos, game boards and materials that can be interactive to help us to have more fun in learning. Admittedly, making every lesson interesting to Zek was really a great challenge for us every time. He’s unending questions wore off our energy and our patience so we needed a lot of time out just to gain back our strength to finish our daily tasks. Praying together everyday is what makes us at peace together and helped us persevere.

Zek is more of a visual learner with an entertainment type of personality. We needed to prepare a lot of drawings, posters or visual aids for each topic and we did a lot of art works together that all our walls around the house are filled with hanging papers. We looked for his activities related to his lessons for the mastery of his skills. We visited museums, watched theater plays and frequented theme parks. We also enrolled him to a music class for he loves to sing. We also encouraged him to write about every event that he attended to or any outdoor activities he did into his blog site from www.zeksantos.ph to www.readyzekaim.blogspot.com for this is one of our way to keep track of his amazing journey in learning besides making his portfolio with his progress reports to be submitted quarterly.

My Lego Collections

After more than 7 years of homeschooling, we still ask the same question to ourselves every now and then especially during tough times teaching our eldest son. For now, he has started his Grade 7 in a traditional school because we feel he needed to learn and experience a real-world educational environment and to learn to deal with different kinds of people and situations too. We also decided to build our own house away from the city to improve our lingering health concerns like endless asthma attacks, sinusitis, rhinitis and the host of other pollution-related allergies.

Now that our youngest son Aim has turned 5 years old and is a preschooler, we are leaning towards independent home-schooling based on his learning pattern and do his lessons according to his interest. Aim is showing skills as an auditory learner and loves to read books. With God’s guidance, we will hopefully journey with him as well throughout his young learning life.

CFA Graduation Day

We are always thankful and grateful to God for all the amazing years of home schooling journey of our family.  After all, enjoying while working together with our kids is always a mutually learning experience we look forward to.

May God bless us all.

Love is In the Air

Love is in the air!

Universally accepted is the fact that February is the month of love. Flowers from all sizes and colors bloom. Chocolates of all sizes and flavors abound. And restaurants are fully-booked for the romantic dinners of emancipated couples in love.

Undeniably, Valentines brings out the love amongst many of us.

On February 2, our small vacationing OFW community, Brgy. China, celebrated the month of love early in a more significant way and a more deeply profound experience without the commercial trappings of the season.

We visited Grace to be Born shelter, a half-way house for the unborn and their mothers. We brought a few baby needs for them and spent nearly two hours with these heavenly infants and toddlers playing, talking, hugging and carrying them. Tita Ester and her staffs were more than accommodating in replying to our queries and personal questions about the stories of most kids and how the center helps these kids get back to their mothers/families or to find foster or adoptive families to give the love they need as they grow up.

When we left, we were happy to be able to share love to these lovely kids but deep inside us, we felt more blessed because we felt God’s love playing with us, talking to us, hugging us and carrying our hearts.

Thanks to Chua family - Joel, Sally, Jojo and Mimi.

Thanks to Laca family - Choy, Pam and Gelo

Thanks to kuya Eric

God bless po.

Happy Birthday Mama Mary!

O my God,

We Believe,

We Adore,

We Hope,

And we Love You.

We ask pardon for those

Who do not believe,

Who do not Adore,

Who do not hope,

And who do not Love You.

Easter is About Kindness

Springtime is nearly over in China.

The cool breeze of air can now only be felt during the early morning.

And it’s the perfect time to do my morning jogs.

A few days ago, I came across an old man who was staring straight at something on a stone wall fencing with metal grills. He was alone and with a rather untidy clothes though I doubt it if he is a street beggar looking for scraps on the other side of the fence. Curious at what he would do next, I walked slowly as I came near him. And there he was, with his frail hands he reached out for a dangling vine whose tiny green rootlets has lost their grasp of the wall. The old man simply wanted to help the poor vine get back on its comfort zone to continue its growth. A very simple gesture that spoke a volume of kindness.

With this I remember some of my shameful and unkind acts that I committed as a young boy. I know I like hitting tree branches with a sturdy stick until all their leaves have fallen. I would kick our banana trees on our backyard just to mimic fighting scenes I have watched in cartoon shows. Oh and about those dragonflies that we caught, we would remove one of its wing and tie a string on its tail so we can still easily catch it back after it desperately tries to fly away. Well, in my lame defense, I would say those actions of mine were ignorant acts borne from curiosity and an equally ignorant peer crowd (we were all neighborhood kids then free to play in vast fishpond grounds without adult supervision). My bad.

But now that I am a grown-up, I have no more excuse to be unkind. Well, that seems to be the norm but the reality is I actually noticed myself finding more lame excuses for my bouts of unkindness. Safe to say, that a lot of us are guilty as we have the following often-used excuses as well.

“I have no time.”

I got deadlines and meetings to attend to. I got products to check and projects to manage. I must bring my son to the barbershop. I got to buy groceries. I must repair some broken house fixture. I need to read my emails. I am so busy that I simply have no time to pause and think of anyone who might need my attention in a particular moment.

“I don’t have enough.”

I once heard somebody said that if he wins the lottery he will give half of his winnings to charity. And so everyday, he places his bet in the hope that he finally gets his wish as a pre-condition for his kindness. Surely, all of us got bills to pay, mouths to feed, children to send to school, families to support and some vices (e.g. chain-smoking etc) and fads (e.g. IPhone4 upgrades etc) to indulge to and that leaves us with a few clanking coins to put into our piggy bank for the next IPhone release.

“It’s not worth it.”

To re-phrase that – “they are not worth my effort.”. Beggars will continue to beg even if they have chance to improve themselves. Worst, some begging are already a part of a syndicate that actually victimizes human kindness. Almsgiving nowadays is just the lazy way to earn money to support their own vices as well. Mendicancy is a lazy man’s career.

Which brings us back to the old man helping the vine get back to its clinging position. Time for him is important as he too old to walk fast enough to get back to his home. And yet he stopped. He didn’t have any special tool to fix the vine. He used his only available tool – his frail hand. The vine, for what its worth, is just an ordinary looking vine which would be easily cut and discarded by the gardener at his next cleaning round. And yet he did not mind at all.

More than two thousand years ago, God showed and fulfilled His ultimate selfless kindness we will ever see. God made the time to plan and perpetuate our salvation by sending His only begotten Son. He gave his all for the ransom of all. And he did this despite our perceived unworthiness of His mercy and love.

The greatest act of kindness to each and every one of us was consummated on Easter Day.

Hopefully, we all learn to show some semblance of this kindness to those around us.

Happy Easter to all.

(originally posted on April 22, 2011)

Advent Season

Our Greetings of Peace to all.

We want to share to you a beautiful song for this Advent Season that was also shared to us too of our good friend from www.mabutingbalita.net. May our hearts sing the same song as we prepare ourselves for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ and in our prayers as we celebrate this time of Advent Season not only this year but for all the years in our life.

Be Blessed and Have A Merry, Merry Christmas to all!

Christ Be Our Light

Bernadette Farrel

http://www.imeem.com/adha/music/elv2-5Oq/christ-be-our-light/

Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
light for the world to see.

Refrain
Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.

Longing for peace, our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has pow’r to save us.
Make us your living voice.

Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others,
shared until all are fed.

Longing for shelter, many are homeless.
Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others,
walls made of living stone.

Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
making your kingdom come.

(originally posted on November 29, 2009)

Praying the Rosary

We are almost half way of October, the month for praying the rosary for Catholic Church obligation. I am so guilty not posting this reminder in advance for many can think about it as just a repetitive action without really benefits us. Some says its boring especially the current generation and others who pray it sleeps on it somehow. We experienced all of it every now and then during our prayer time too. But we mostly hear this comment for those persons who does not concedes the promises of praying the rosary.

By praying the rosary, giving at least 15 minutes of your time daily, I am sure that everybody will agree to me that we did not really consume or waste time for nothing but gained us so much more graces and pieces of good fortune with only so little time we spare in communication with our provider of all. As evidently affirmed below with intercession of Mama Mary, we can receive a lot benefits like;

Spiritual Benefit - brings us closer to God and allows Him to actively help us in our life.

Physical Benefit – healing thru meditation.

Mental Benefit - positive thinking with better outlook in life.

The Fifteen Promises of Mary to Christians Who Recite the Rosary

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces.
2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.
3. The Rosary will be a powerful armor against hell. It will destroy vice, decrease sin and defeat heresies.
4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, those souls would sanctify themselves by this means.
5. Those who recommend themselves to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.
6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.
7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death, the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.
9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in heaven.
11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.
12. All those who propagate the holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.
13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.
14. All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only son, Jesus Christ.
15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

(Given to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan) Imprimatur: Patrick J. Hayes DD Archbishop of New York)

There is so much more that only you can encounter personally from this devotional prayer so we want to share to you all this powerful prayer that can help each one of us ease our burden in this time of crisis and natural calamity happening more often these days all over the world with a really crucial effect on us. If every one of us will put our hearts in to a quiet moment of 15-30 minutes per day to be our partners in our daily rosary prayer offering, surely we can make our world a serene place to live in with our family.

(originally posted on Sept. 5, 2009)