Let me introduce our group, we originated as "Home Mission" in 1982 organised by Fr. Ho from the Church of St. Francis of Assisi at Boon Lay. At that time some of us at Teban Gardens attended that Parish. Well that is to say we existed before the formation of Catholic Neighbourhood Group (CNG) set up in 1985 by Fr. Nicolas Chia of Holy Cross Church at Clementi Ave 1. Presently Nicolas Chia is the Archbishop of Singapore; the Shepherd of the Catholic flock. However at that time we had given Fr. Ho a title of 'OMO' one-man-operator as he had to lock up his church to come to our group prayer meeting. Later on as we switched over to Holy Cross, mostly for convenient sake and became involved with the CNG. In the early days we even had priests for our spiritual director but later dropped off; probably owing to pressure of work and shortage of priests. Therefore it gave us reason to pray harder for more priestly vocations as the profession not appealing to our young generation. However we believe that our CNG must carry on and that if we are doing God's work, we shall survive or if not our grouping will simply die a natural death. It was during our weekly Fridays prayer meeting when we decided to hold the next Christmas party on a much larger scale as our group had grown. And accommodating in individual house became too small, so it had to be held at our nearby Community ‘Multi-purpose hall’ behind of Block No.62 Teban Gardens. As a CNG we are a small community of believers gathered together sharing the same faith.
In our neighbourhood, we are the little church and gathered weekly for prayers, offering for the intentions of our Holy Father the Pope, to strengthen our faith, to pray for one another, for others that have no one to pray for them and most important for peace in our world. Our world that is filled besides natural disasters with wars from earliest times, from simple bows and arrows graduated to present time push-button sophisticated missiles. Mankind have perfected the art of killing creating new inventions, improving the techniques and so the world has not known real peace. True peace comes only from our Lord, Jesus Christ if we follow him as he is the Prince of Peace.
We were celebrating his 2003 rd Birthday and it shows that how God loves us that he gave us his only begotten son. Born into this world in a lowly manner, a humble manger, as the inns were full; just to be like us in everything except sin. To redeem us for our sinfulness, by dying for us on the cross; an undignified death. For what ? for our salvation, he laid down his life so what more can we ask for? So on for this occasion we want to proclaim the good news by inviting not only our neighbourhood but also non- Christian friends in order to spread the message of ‘good will’ to all men. We lived in our multi-religious Singapore where we have other religions like Buddhism, Islam, Hindu, Taoism, Sikhism, Judaism…So we must learn to live with each other, not to impose our beliefs on others but to accept what they are with respect and tolerance; to be at peace with one another. Remember what Christ had said in Matt 19:19 ‘you must love your neighbour as yourself’.
We had picked the date as 13th December in advanced as later most of us would be busy ourselves as Christmas draw closer to prepare our own individual celebration. So we arranged ‘pot-luck’ that meant each family to contribute their share of food as according to their numbers attending. As assigned Gilbert went to the Town Council and booked the multi-purpose hall. Someone was appointed co-ordinator so as not to have the food duplicated, we wanted variety.
When the day came, there was a slight drizzle but it did not worry us for this time we had a roof over our heads. The previous year we held our ‘Christmas Barbecue Party’ in the open, down at our garden and the weather was threatening with black clouds building up: a tell-tale sign that a storm was approaching.
Our function to start at 5.00pm, but after lunch we were down to put the decorations for the entrance and hall, the props, buntings; Sam and Jennifer came over to assist. At first I thought of bringing down my audio sound system but owing to the mess of criss-crossed wiring and many plugs we changed our minds. Sam proposed a way out by using his set instead which was more straight forward and simple; so went for it.
I borrowed a trolley to cart away the bulky stuffs, like TV, amplifier and speakers from the flat to the hall and set it up. The entrance we had a banner with the wordings “Welcome Teban Garden CNG X’mas party'”, hollies spread across with balloons, lace-cloths wrapped the post and two lighted candle-stand. Another lighted stand stood outside in a conspicuous location to be seen by motorist driving into the car-park. The naked ‘Light’ symbolise ‘Christ’ as the light of the world that shines into the darkness; darkness is associated with evil, untruth, lies, not forgetting that we too at times have our dark side.
Inside the multi-purpose hall another banner wishing all a ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”. Including a small Christmas tree all decorated and lighted up. A little later Gilbert came along with his barang-barang, barbecue set, stools and followed by Ah Moey and her hubby Joseph with food, a big table and more stools.
Dinner is ready, it is self-service so help yourself.
As things settled down I made an announcement for attention; to pray the ‘Grace before meals’ asking our good Lord to bless our food. After that I gave a loud ‘battle cry’ the magic word for the hungry “attack” and the assault on the food was on. We thank God that we are blessed with abundant food and many good friends. My pilot friends came to join us in our celebration, one guy from New Zealand and was surprised that we had a close knitted community. We set aside a big table for our senior citizens, the old and the feeble; my elderly mother still mobile and could even dance with Kim. Simon’s mother in a wheel-chair, Kim’s wife Estelle and myself settled down to enjoy the food silently and seriously.
Lawrence,Flora, James and Cynthia
From left: Lucy, Dolly, Gilbert and Lawrence
From left: Felicity,Elizabeth, Sydney and Simon.
Felicity is daughter of Sydney, Elizabeth his wife. Sydney, Simon were our old guards.
Joseph and his family
Sam our non-Christian neighbour, together with Kim started the ball rolling by opening up. Sam with Chinese numbers and Kim with some old sentimental songs. watched by my pilot friends. I sang my favourites from the ‘Bee Gee’s album like, ‘I started a Joke’ and ‘Words’
Sam and Kim singing for their supper.
From left: Flora, Sunarti and Sam
My God-daughter Flora, looking on as our maid Sunarti singing Christmas Carols in Indonesian (Batak language). Sam checking on something, I think VCD.
From left: Meg, Lucy, Dolly,Mary's son, Mary and my mum.
Jennifer and Sam
Show time, Jennifer and Sam a husband and wife team gave a ‘cha-cha’ demonstration.
Jennifer and Dolly doing Line-dancing
My mum getting lesson from the Champion.
We are proud to make known that amongst us, that Kim and Estelle won the World Ballroom Championship 1972 in New York and 1978 in London.
Anyway all good things must come to an end, so by 10.00pm some of those living far away left earlier while other still lingering along. It had been a wonderful evening, well spent in sharing and in the spirit of fellowship.
The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi ringing in my ears.
‘Lord make me an instrument of thy peace
When there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy’
We celebrate Jesus' birth because it is an important event in the history of human race. His birth was a turning point by being born and coming amongst us, he brought salvation to the whole world. The message of Christmas is to rejoice and be glad for in
Lk 2:11 ‘Today in the Town of David a Saviour has been born to you: he is Christ the Lord’.
Group photo Teban Garden CNG Christmas party 2003
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