United as One Family

          Last August 19, 2017 Saturday, Couples For Christ (CFC) Melbourne,  Australia celebrated its 26th anniversary at Saint Brigid Catholic Church. The day's celebration was filled with laughters and screams as each one witnessed the various presentations from the CFC units: West, North, South etc. 

          The YFC group was very generous to share their talents through their various presentations like the band playing and dances.

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There was also the much applauded lip sync battle of the different CFC Units. Our unit, CFC North Unit, was successful in sharing our God given talents through our Grease dance presentation- thanks to the support of our Unit Leaders, Bro. Walter and Bro. Gary as well as to our household leader- Bro. Sam and Sis Bong.

          Prayers and worship were also shared thus making this event centered on our belief that everything which happened within those 26 years of existence were guided by the graces of our Most Loving Father. Hence all these manifestations are but just right to be returned to Him through this get together of CFC brothers and sisters all throughout Melbourne. 

          Much gratefulness also to the elders of CFC Melbourne who unceasingly devoted their extra mile, time and resources so that CFC will continue to flourish and grow in this part of the globe.

The Need to Belong

          One of man's basic needs is the need to belong to a community whether it is a social group, an athletic group, a religious community, a spiritual group and others. No one could ever live and survive on this world just by his lonesome. In one way or the other, the need for companionship and belongingness is but a very essential one among man's hierarchy of needs.

          Thus, it is weighs a lot that at an early stage, a child is nurtured and guided on how to interact with his peers. So many resources like books, video materials, recordings are available everywhere to augment man's understanding about this task. However, in reality, this is easily said than done. There has to be a consistent accompaniment on the child so that his needs can be realised and attended. 

        No one can substitute physical presence with mere possessions like money, treasures, gadgets etc. Somehow this is the challenge that is being thrown to all adults whether one is a parent or non parent. In spite of all life's busy routines, there has to be  a place for proper guidance to sufficiently answer the needs of those young people in the community.  

Real Friends are Worth Keeping

          How many friends whom you can really consider as real ones? If we will think about it, some of those friends are not really "real". Real friends are those whom you can rely in whatever situation one is in. He is there in times of joy and times of tears. 

          Thus you should be thankful if you can find one. Having them in our life adds flavour to it and let us find ways to keep them inside our hearts. Life's journey could be very tricky at times and in those trying times,

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we need people who can share their time and energy with us. This is always a gift --to have somebody who can listen to you no matter what it takes. 

          Journeying in life is exciting and easy when we have real friends around us. Hence we also allow others to enjoy and treasure our friendships. After all, we are made to help each other in all times. 

Quality Time.....Quality Life

          No matter how abundant we are in life but if we are not happy and contented with our primary relationships, then everything goes to nothing. Though we may differ in terms of our understanding of quality life yet for many, it is the amount of time that we spend together with our loved ones like family, relatives, friends and others. 

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          Life is marked by the kinds of priorities that we assigned to it. And from one person to the other, this varies according to our standards, ideals  and behaviour. This will take form in a matter of a pyramid and at times, this will become the inverted pyramid for others. Priorities such as money, health, travels, religion, food, security, and many others almost become as our main reasons why we need to get up every single day. 

          Yet at the end of the day, many among us are convinced that spending quality time with our families and others is the best positive way so that we can attain the so-called quality life. Amidst the challenge brought about by today's all advancements such as technologies and others, there lies the very basic way of promoting quality life----to spend quality time that is defined by the amount of love, affection as well as kindness that we share with those special people in our life. 

Sharing the Joy of Christmas

          As we in our household joined together in the spirit of the holiday season, we cherished every moment of our bonding. The hosts of our gathering were Sis Danna and Bro Rodel Ordonez at their lovely residence in Mernda suburban. What  made this gathering a momentous one was that almost all the members were present. 

 While waiting for the food to be served, we enjoyed ourselves through our karaoke session. Each one rendered his masterpiece to the delight of the rest of the group. Songs ranging from the 60s up to the latest ones were performed by the group.

After a while, food was served and everyone was delighted to the various recipes prepared by the different wives of our household. 

          As each one is excited to welcome the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, the joy also of being gathered together as one community through our household was very evident on the face of each member. Thus, we say good- bye to 2015 and with a high spirit, we welcome this new year 2016. 

Sharing of Love and Compassion

          Another gathering of life was held today on our Couples for Christ North Household community. Our kind host was the Vidal family, couple Bro. Alex and Sis. Precious and their ever talented daughter Alexi. We went through our usual routine of our gathering and in spite of our conventional way, it was still enriched by the varied experiences we shared in our group. 

          When everyone was ready, we started our gathering with two meaningful songs,  My Life is In You and Give Thanks. The first song allowed us to recognise God as the source of all- that everything we have in life- life, strength, talents, skills, etc. - they are all coming from Him and it is  but fitting for us all to recognise Him as such.

          The second song, Give Thanks, allowed us to recognise again God as the source of everything and that we are expressing our gratefulness to Him for all His unending goodness showered on us every single day.  

  We have so much to be thankful to Him and for several times in our life, we fail to recognise such goodness thus we chose this song to remind us that we have to be constantly grateful to God Above for His love and compassion.

          We moved on with the rest of our activities such as the sharing of thanksgiving prayers and also the expression of petitions wherein we submitted all our worries and concerns to God believing that He can hear us at all times. He would always remain as the source of our strength and energy everyday as we continue with our separate journeys in life. 

The Need To Belong

          One of man's primary needs is the need to belong to a certain group. It goes with his desire to be accepted as a person. However just like any process of communication, it is always a two-way process meaning he needs to be accepted by the other members of that group and at the same time, he needs to accept the whole package of that group so as to be considered as in the group. 

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          Different stages are involved in this process of integrating oneself into the group. At a certain stage, personal values need to be aligned with that of the group. Maybe there could be instances that he needs to sacrifice for the sake of the group. Citing a concrete example of this, if the group is actively participating and responding to the social needs of the times like poverty, social discrimination, racial issues, etc. then he has to convince himself that he values these issues personally so that he can extend a genuine participation to the cause of the group.

            Oneself vs. themselves......man vs. community....him vs. them....sometimes a conflict between any of these groups but somehow, the tides can be turned against a conflicting situation and finally emerging as victorious at the end. Hence the best way to belong to a particular group is by initially checking what are the values this group has and compare them with one's own values.