I am in this world living the present.
Any good thing that I can do,
or any happiness that I can bring to others,
please tell me.
Don’t let me put things off or forget,
because I shall never live this moment again.
(Henry Drummond The Supreme Gift, [1851-1897])
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
highlights for October: International Lasallian Day of Prayer for Peace
a letter from the International Council of Young Lasallians
To: Brother Visitors and Auxiliary Visitors, Young Lasallian leaders and Young Lasallians
Dear Brothers and Young Lasallians,
Greetings from Rome, where the International Council of Young Lasallians has been meeting these last days. We would like to take this opportunity to renew our invitation to all Young Lasallians coming from various Districts and Regions to join in an international experience of sharing and prayer. The launch of the activity of the International Lasallian Day of Prayer for Peace (ILDPP) last year, saw a very encouraging number of groups taking up that invitation and participating in this wider community effort of sharing faith and hope for peace.
This activity had originally stemmed out from the YL needs as put forward by the delegates present at the last International Symposium for Young Lasallians. At the time, a collective call to respond to worldwide issues and to strengthen our international network were paramount issues. ICYL would like to envisage the establishment of ILDPP initiatives in the annual calendars of all local YL movements and schools within the various Districts and Regions. We hope that more Lasallian communities avail themselves of this activity to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters, especially the young and the poor, who lack peace in their lives on many levels and who are suffering unjustly.
This project should be taken up in unison by as many Regions, Districts, Young Lasallian movements, schools and communities as possible during the 4th week of October, that is between Monday 20th and Sunday 26st October 2008, acting as ONE International Lasallian Community. Even though activities could be spread out throughout the whole week, these could possibly culminate on Sunday 26th October so as to ensure as much as possible, that we share our intentions together.
Shortly we shall be updating the ILDPP web page on the Institute's website. This section shall also include the final programmes coming from the different corners of the Lasallian world. For this reason we encourage you to finalise your programmes so as to share them with the rest of Lasallian Community on the occasion of this international activity.
The initiatives in the different Districts and Regions could take the form of, but are not limited to, the following:
· Voluntary work experiences both within and outside your own district
· Commitment to live a simpler, less consumerist life
· Assembly activities in schools
· Prayer services
· Workshops / Campaigns / Art Exhibitions
· Peaceful marches
· Sending of letters to local authorities calling for peace in specific areas
· Intercultural or Inter-religious activities
· Others
We encourage you to forward us any relevant resources and materials related to the theme of "Peace" you might have and which could be useful to other groups in preparation of this event.
It would be greatly appreciated if you could forward us the contact details of other people who you think would be interested in participating in or coordinating such an activity within their District or Region. We also urge you to express your feelings and thoughts, accompanied by any suggestions or comments regarding this promising international activity.
For further updates and correspondence regarding this initiative or any other ICYL project, kindly contact us at icyl@lasalle.org or visit our website on www.lasalle.org/icyl.
Sincerely yours,
International Council of Young Lasallians
so....happy peaceful working everyone ;;D
To: Brother Visitors and Auxiliary Visitors, Young Lasallian leaders and Young Lasallians
Dear Brothers and Young Lasallians,
Greetings from Rome, where the International Council of Young Lasallians has been meeting these last days. We would like to take this opportunity to renew our invitation to all Young Lasallians coming from various Districts and Regions to join in an international experience of sharing and prayer. The launch of the activity of the International Lasallian Day of Prayer for Peace (ILDPP) last year, saw a very encouraging number of groups taking up that invitation and participating in this wider community effort of sharing faith and hope for peace.
This activity had originally stemmed out from the YL needs as put forward by the delegates present at the last International Symposium for Young Lasallians. At the time, a collective call to respond to worldwide issues and to strengthen our international network were paramount issues. ICYL would like to envisage the establishment of ILDPP initiatives in the annual calendars of all local YL movements and schools within the various Districts and Regions. We hope that more Lasallian communities avail themselves of this activity to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters, especially the young and the poor, who lack peace in their lives on many levels and who are suffering unjustly.
This project should be taken up in unison by as many Regions, Districts, Young Lasallian movements, schools and communities as possible during the 4th week of October, that is between Monday 20th and Sunday 26st October 2008, acting as ONE International Lasallian Community. Even though activities could be spread out throughout the whole week, these could possibly culminate on Sunday 26th October so as to ensure as much as possible, that we share our intentions together.
Shortly we shall be updating the ILDPP web page on the Institute's website. This section shall also include the final programmes coming from the different corners of the Lasallian world. For this reason we encourage you to finalise your programmes so as to share them with the rest of Lasallian Community on the occasion of this international activity.
The initiatives in the different Districts and Regions could take the form of, but are not limited to, the following:
· Voluntary work experiences both within and outside your own district
· Commitment to live a simpler, less consumerist life
· Assembly activities in schools
· Prayer services
· Workshops / Campaigns / Art Exhibitions
· Peaceful marches
· Sending of letters to local authorities calling for peace in specific areas
· Intercultural or Inter-religious activities
· Others
We encourage you to forward us any relevant resources and materials related to the theme of "Peace" you might have and which could be useful to other groups in preparation of this event.
It would be greatly appreciated if you could forward us the contact details of other people who you think would be interested in participating in or coordinating such an activity within their District or Region. We also urge you to express your feelings and thoughts, accompanied by any suggestions or comments regarding this promising international activity.
For further updates and correspondence regarding this initiative or any other ICYL project, kindly contact us at icyl@lasalle.org or visit our website on www.lasalle.org/icyl.
Sincerely yours,
International Council of Young Lasallians
so....happy peaceful working everyone ;;D
for October....
This day, O Father,
may the glory of all that you have made
remind me of your presence
and lead me closer to you.
on Laskar Pelangi - a humble review
It all begun with a dream. 10 kids - despite their parents' humble background as marginalised residents of a once glorious island of Belitong, who deprived their access to the island's very own abundant resources of coil - wanted to be more than just coil workers as most of their parents were. So they went to the least expensive primary school (I even thought that they paid no tuition fee afterall!) on the island, SD Muhammadiyah.
It wasn't with no difficulties at all. To them, the then so-called Laskar Pelangi (The Rainbow Army, literally), 10 is a magic number indeed. It is the minimum number of students a school should accomodate, so it wouldn't be closed down. (In the movie) The Rainbow Army itself is the last batch of the school. Despite the minimum number of students, and minimum number of teachers (only 3! One which then moved to another school, and the other one - the principal - passed away. So in the end the Army only had 1 teacher left), and minimum standard of buildings and books and chalks and uniforms and money and and and and.....the kids' will to study failed to fade.
The movie showed a lot of lost to the Army: Ikal (one of the main characters) lost his first love, the resignation of one of their teachers, their principal's death, and the most lost...Lintang, the smartest of all (a genius by nature, Ikal said), who never minded cycling back and forth to the school for 70km everyday, had to drop out from school after his father lost in the sea; the same day he brought the school a big winning on a local academic competition against the most favorite school on the island. Lintang had no mother, and he was the eldest of 4, his siblings were all girls....so the tragic path was clear to him and to all his friends and beloved teacher: he had to be the man of the family - when he was only 10.
A big lost indeed.
Although the movie showed only two significant winnings of the Army (1 in an Independence Day Festival, the other was the academic competition Lintang had won for the school), it highlighted the most winning of all: dreams do come true, when you're true to it. Lintang passed on his zeal in studying to his daughter, while Ikal fought for Lintang's dream also: to go to Paris, the most beautiful city of all, where scholars breathed it's inspiring air and drink its intoxicating wine of knowledge.
So Ikal went to Sorbonne for his masteral, then a few years after he went back to the country, wrote the story of the Rainbow Army.
This is a true story.
This could be your story too.
So see the movie. Or buy the book.
It wasn't with no difficulties at all. To them, the then so-called Laskar Pelangi (The Rainbow Army, literally), 10 is a magic number indeed. It is the minimum number of students a school should accomodate, so it wouldn't be closed down. (In the movie) The Rainbow Army itself is the last batch of the school. Despite the minimum number of students, and minimum number of teachers (only 3! One which then moved to another school, and the other one - the principal - passed away. So in the end the Army only had 1 teacher left), and minimum standard of buildings and books and chalks and uniforms and money and and and and.....the kids' will to study failed to fade.
The movie showed a lot of lost to the Army: Ikal (one of the main characters) lost his first love, the resignation of one of their teachers, their principal's death, and the most lost...Lintang, the smartest of all (a genius by nature, Ikal said), who never minded cycling back and forth to the school for 70km everyday, had to drop out from school after his father lost in the sea; the same day he brought the school a big winning on a local academic competition against the most favorite school on the island. Lintang had no mother, and he was the eldest of 4, his siblings were all girls....so the tragic path was clear to him and to all his friends and beloved teacher: he had to be the man of the family - when he was only 10.
A big lost indeed.
Although the movie showed only two significant winnings of the Army (1 in an Independence Day Festival, the other was the academic competition Lintang had won for the school), it highlighted the most winning of all: dreams do come true, when you're true to it. Lintang passed on his zeal in studying to his daughter, while Ikal fought for Lintang's dream also: to go to Paris, the most beautiful city of all, where scholars breathed it's inspiring air and drink its intoxicating wine of knowledge.
So Ikal went to Sorbonne for his masteral, then a few years after he went back to the country, wrote the story of the Rainbow Army.
This is a true story.
This could be your story too.
So see the movie. Or buy the book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
