January 27, 2019 (Sunday) is the 4th Sunday of the month, and, therefore, is the first Sunday celebration of the year for the Filipino Catholic Community of Gouda (FCC-Gouda) & Surroundings. On this day, the members of the community happily gathered together to welcome the year with a fully packed agenda of the day.
The one-hour service started with early arrivals of church members, greeting one another and welcoming back two of the community’s valued priests– Fr. Marcel Uzoigwe and Fr. Mark Robin Hoogland as concelebrants of this Sunday service.
Fr. Mark Robin and Fr. Marcel
One of the highlights of today’s Sunday activity was the ‘launch’ or start of the FCC-Gouda’s Children Bible Corner (CBC), an initiative to also get the young ones actively involved and get started in deepening their knowledge of God.
Children reading today’s gospel in Luke 4:18-20– “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Officiated by Fr. Mark, the community was also delighted to witness the Confirmation of Pascal Benjamin Hendrikus Kroeze. The confirmation ceremony comes in four acts: (1) the laying on of hands, a biblical gesture by which the gift of the Holy Spirit is invoked; (2) reciting of the creed to profess one’s faith; (3) the anointing of Chrism, which signifies that the person being confirmed is now sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit; and (4) receiving the cross, which symbolizes the person’s Confirmation.
Laying on of hands on Pascal with his partner, Eve, by his sidePascal recites the Creed to profess his faith and renew his baptism vows.The Annointing of Chrism (consecrated oil): Fr. Mark Robin dips his thumb in the Chrism and makes a sign of the cross on the forehead of Pascal, signifying that he is being sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Fr. Mark gives Pascal a cross to signify Pascal’s confirmation.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, the children were all enthusiastic in meeting the other kids, sitting face to face, and knowing each other by name. Above all, through CBC, the children get the chance to be heard as well as to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences.
The children listen to the story of creation, read by Isabelle Hameete and followed by Daphne Streefland, two of the four CBC volunteers of the day. The other two were Lovella Modillas and Myra Colis.Time for writing and colouring!
For the four volunteers helping out with this first CBC, they too find it delightful to have the children say something about who God is and why they are in the church. To sum up the brief but delightful conversations, CBC coordinator of the month, Myra Colis, taught the children an English song called, “My God is so Big” with the following lyrics saying, “my God is so big, so strong and so mighty… there’s nothing my God can not do.”
Attendees of the first ever Children Bible Corner (CBC) of FCC-Gouda showing their works, Bjorn reading Luke 4:18-20, and ending up their presentation with the song, “My God is so Big.”
As usual, the mass ended by greeting the birthday celebrants of the month, followed by the fellowship & salu-salo time to complete the day’s provision of food not only for the mind and spirit but also for the body.
Contributor: Susan Horn | Photo credits: Susan Horn, Kathy Grimme, Lovella Modillas
Before the year ends, the Filipino Catholic Community in Gouda (FCC-Gouda) and the Filipino Catholic Community in Dordrecht (FCC-Dordrecht) joined forces and have successfully completed the first of many more upcoming leadership and organizational trainings to help the community move forward. Members of the Board, leaders or officers and future leaders as well as active members from both communities joined together on November 24, 2018 at the O.L.V. Hemelvaartkerk in Gouda for the 5-hour training on transformational leadership.
Led and facilitated by Myra Zymelka-Colis, Content & Concept Developer at E3 Data Intelligence Services (e3dis) and the Founding Chairperson of MABIKAs Foundation-The Netherlands, the interactive training focused more on understanding the WHYs, WHATs and HOWs of the organization and clarifying what the FCC communities are here for (vision, mission and goals).
What further added value to the training is the presence and support of Father Marcel Abouchi, of whom FCC will always be grateful for for his commitment and dedication in helping us meet the needs of the church and community members.
Seven (7) of the participants are from FCC-Dordrecht and eleven (11) are from FCC-Gouda. Apparently, the 7/11 attendees find the training workshop valuable and were all happy to end the day with positive and constructive feedback such as follows:
“A useful day with lots of information on how to improve, maintain, give info, grow and connect with people.”
“The content of the workshop meets the expectations and is spelled out. Presentation is very well, clear and engaging. The atmosphere was nice, informal yet adequate for learning.”“I’ve learned a lot from this training. It has given me a direction on where we are going as an organization. The training also helped me to realize what our vision, mission and goals are for the community as well as the activities that we need to focus onto to achieve our goals.”“The workshop was really worth attending. I’ve learned a number of things that I’m quite positive will greatly help improve how we as Board Members run our organization/ foundation. I’ve always been looking for ways to “professionalize” our organization and bring it to a higher level somehow, and our trainer & facilitator has given us insights and suggestions on how to achieve that.”Group discussion on spiritual maturityGroup discussion on time managementGroup discussion on human resourcesGroup discussion on fundraising“The speaker/facilitator is knowledgeable of the topic. The informal atmosphere enables us to openly speak our minds.”“The training is very informative. It opened my eyes to new ideas and also value what we are already doing as a group in the church. We learned a lot of ways to improve; there’s more room for improvement.”The FCC-Gouda TeamThe FCC-Dordrecht Team
“Thank you, Myra, for the educational and spiritual leadership training. It has enlarged my mission as a Christian and as a member of FCC. It was worth listening to every word.”
The prayer warriors of the Filipino Catholic Community (FCC) of Gouda & Surroundings have joined hands together with Our Lady of Guadalupe Ambassadress (OLGA) on October 14, 2018 at O.L.V Hemelvaartkerk to pray the living Rosary, the main purpose of which is to help restore and strengthen faith in the hearts of people.
FCC-Gouda & Surrounding would like to thank the OLGA team led by Ms. Evelyn Mendoza from Rotterdam for joining us in making this Living Rosary prayer event a success. We give back all the glory, praise and thanks to God!
The Filipino Catholic Community of Gouda (FCC-Gouda) & Surroundings will hold a Living Rosary prayer gathering on October 14, 2018 at the O.L.V. Hemelvaartkerk in Gouda. It’s a 3-part service from 1pm to 5pm. Interested members of the community, friends and families are all welcome to join in prayer. The program is as follows
PART 1
13:00 –13:30 Registration of participants
13:00 – 14:00 Overview/orientation and procession (Song; On this Day)
14:00 – 15:00 Sharing spiritual experiences and healing testimonies (Song: Come Holy Spirit)
15:00 – 15:05 Divine Mercy 3 o’clock prayer
PART 2
15:05 – 15:25 Rosary Prayer
Every participants are invited to offer a lighted candle, or that depends on your number of intentions. Every personal intention means 1 lighted candle.
15:25 – 15:40 Triduum Novena
15:40 – 16:00 Praising veneration of Mother Mary’s portrait
PART 3
16:00 – 16:50 Get together fellowship (shared Snacks)
16:50 – 17:00 Closing time and cleaning up
Reminders:
1. Every participants must be bring bunch of flowers for the flower offering portion.
2. Candles are available on the church but prepare 1 euro for each candle as a donation
