Gift Giving in Balulang

Today is the gift giving in Balulang. This yearly activity has been started by my late father who many years ago went house to house in our neighborhood and to give a bag of groceries. I can't forget how he has retold the story of one of our neighbors who received the grocery bag with such joy (and with tears of joy) and couldn't helped but embraced my father tightly and thanked him countless of times. This and many of our neighbors were so thankful and touched by my father's thoughtful gesture. Our neighbors are actually very simple people who survive by their simple jobs such as driving the trisikad ( tricyle) , selling banana q, doing laundry or doing carpentry work. Some of them don't even have proper and regular income.

So, the gift giving has become a yearly thing with both my father and mother shelling out a portion of their income to give out grocery items to our neighbors. When my father passed away and with my mom retired from her job, the whole family took this up as a family project with each family contributing an amount to buy the groceries. Then, later the church also joined in and now the scope has widened by blessing not just our neighbors but also those who live farther from us. Indeed this activity is an opportunity to share not just our material blessings but also share our spiritual blessings.

I just hope and pray that through the sharing of these blessings more and more people will be able to experience the love of Christ in their lives.