The day started overcast and rainy; however these did not beat the Lord’s weekend agenda for some members of the CFC.  Twenty-two members (6 guys and 16 ladies) of the SFC met in the afternoon of Dec.1 at the Pope John XXIII Center and happily convoyed to La Pelouse in Bex in the canton of Vaud to have fun as well as to serve in the Handmaids Enrichment Retreat (HER 1 and 2).  The trip took a good hour and a half and we arrived at the retreat house just a little before dinner time. 

Our purpose for being in La Pelouse was three-fold.  One of our objectives was to sing in the Harana for those in the HER and this came late Saturday evening.  Fondly, we sang our hearts out to somewhat familiar love songs and did this to the best of our abilities and tunes.  With us were several couples who led the singing. In this activity, I was reminded of the word SERVICE.

The extra time available allowed SFC to plan and maximize the rest of our time in La Pelouse and to enjoy each other’s company and the amazing landscape.  In addition to the Harana, we were also led by Tito Oscar and Tita Alice to our own SFC activities: the Christmas party and reflection session. 

The SFC Christmas party was another objective. Like any Christmas celebration, it was fun and successful! We had food, presentations, games, gift exchanges, dancing, numerous and extensive picture taking moments and karaoke-singing. These are usual but what probably made the whole activity different, at least from my observation, was the extra mile or the extra effort that all went for in conjuring the Christmas party, e.g. to plan the households’ presentations, to make the schedule adjustments to be able to practice as a household, to feed household members before or after the practices, to find an appropriate unisex gift to purchase, to prepare the venue and transportation, etc.  To go the extra mile or make the extra effort until sacrifices have to be made to pursue a common goal talks about LOVE.

The conduct of the SFC reflection session was the last, shortest but the most serious objective of the weekend. Tito Oscar talked about being focused on the Lord or being single-minded singles for Him and the ways by which we can achieve this. At the end of the talk, I gathered that being single-minded for the Lord, eventually asks the questions “Are you for/with Me or not? Are you willing to change your ways to My ways or not?” These questions show that there are only two absolute extremes and nothing in between.  After this, we were divided into groups to reflect on the past, present and future of CFC SFC. I believe all these speak of COMMITMENT to the Lord and His works.

In conclusion, the over-all the activity ended with much feat and satisfaction because we met our service and SFC goals for the weekend! And for me who just graduated from the CLP, it was a noteworthy experience because I was brought to the realization that the themes that I have learned through the weekend’s activities were very timely as SERVICE, LOVE AND COMMITMENT are the very same REASONS for Christmas! Though the celebration of Christmas is still days away, it is great to know that we have lived its Spirit that weekend! A blessed and merry Christmas to everyone!

 

Contributed by:

Jenny dela Rosa
SFC Geneva