Saturday, May 9, 2015

Sharing: Charity Works of Holy Family Church

      

     Once a while, Fr. Lu invites parishioners to visit a leprocy center in Huidong, celebrate Masses, decorate their chapel for Christmas and give donation.  In the other occasions, the parishioners were also asked to give donation to help another parishioner, orphanage or Church including for the Church in Long Gang District Shenzhen which is still under construction. 
        As I mentioned in my 2015 Easter letter, I initiated a Lenten Campaign by inviting the parishioners to put their Lent sacrifice money in a plastic folder, returned it on Holy Friday and it will be used for our charity works.  I also prepare a suggestion form if the parishioners know someone who needs our help.
        One of the parishioners suggested giving donation to Mr. Zhang in Rao Ping – Shan Tou Diocese.  His wife Mrs. Liu and I went to their village Dong Shang on April 20 by bus around 6 hours from Shenzhen.  One of his nephews picked us up to his mother’s house around 15 minutes by car.  His mother, 84 yo and living alone, prepared the dinner for us.  It’s raining heavily so there was no electricity for a while only for this village because they have their own generator.  There are around 300-400 parishioners in their village, all of the residences has family name “Liu.”  The next morning, two elderly parishioners visited us and then we went to the Church.  The Church is usually locked and there is no regular Sunday Masses.  I asked them to pray morning prayer in their dialect.  Mrs. Liu showed me around the village and then she asked her brother in-law to send us to Mr. Zhang’s village Qi Xing Lou by his motorcycle. Several parishioners, Mrs. Liu and I visited the Church, a 90 yo women who lives alone, and then Mr. Zhang. He is feeling better after getting Chinese medicine treatment.  They don’t have enough income to pay the medicine and their living cost.  I gave the donation and reminded them to use it for the treatment.  He and his family are so grateful for the donation and my visit.  I invited them to pray together before we left.  After that, Mrs. Liu and I had lunch at one of their relatives’ house.  I prayed with the couples and their daughter in-law. We went to buy the train ticket and visited a ceramic factory belonged to Mr. Liu’s brother.  There are several ceramic factories in that area.  Mr.  Liu’s mother several times was so eager to talk with me and then she realized that I can’t understand her dialect and she can’t speak Putonghua.  She spent most of her time watching the DVD of the Masses in Shenzhen so she invited me to watch it too.  She didn’t watch television at all.     Here is the link of the trip: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbuWrFm4ZM2QL
        We also donated part of our Lenten Campaign to the sisters in Daming – Hebei for their kitchen and their orphanage.
        Several of our parishioners are also in financial difficulties.  A priest in Hebei is looking for donation for the construction of their Church in a village of 70-80 parishioners.  

Hong Kong, May 9, 2015


Sr. Anastasia B. Lindawati, M.M.

Let’s do simple things with simple love to make God’s love visible