Sharing the Experience
Hawak Kamay Team,
Malta, 17th August 2012
Dear Friends,
Through this simple note, we invite you to share in our experience in the Philippines from the 9th of July till the 5th of August 2012 as Hawak Kamay Voluntary Team. Thanks for following us through. We thank you for the great encouragement we received from you before and during our mission venture, which was quite challenging! It touched humanity at its very core. It marked our lives. We returned from there very much enriched. We did our best to give our best and we received much better than our best!!! We can never be the same again.
The poor people have so much to teach us! They transpire their simplicity, their freedom and detachment, their joy, their spirituality... even if they possess practically nothing! When we visited, in their poverty they repeatedly chanted: “God is good... all the time!” That is simply because we were there with some rice, sardines, biscuits, soft toys, bags and stationery! “God is good... all the time!” Is that our chant in our daily life or does it play a different tune?
We discovered a world which is very different from ours and yet it felt like home at its roots! We learned so much about life! We touched misery, pain, nothingness, illness and insecurity. We met God in His distressing disguise. And somehow, our joy within was doubled, tripled and multiplied further in the face of all this. We do not know why. It cannot be explained. It can only be experienced.
We thank you heartily for your spiritual, moral, material and financial support. Thanks also to all those of you who gave of your precious time in collecting and cleaning items, in searching for sponsors, in joining us during the tough Carboot Sales and in so many other instances. Thanks for your generosity.
We are presenting some pictures which definitely speak louder than words. We have uploaded the best photos of our 3 mission trips so that you might share our experience and see for yourselves the fruits of your generosity, whatever the type. You can go to the Photo Gallery Blog Page of our simple website: www.launchout.yolasite.com or, for the last updates and larger resolutions, you can click the link below:
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For the best view, for Mission Trip 1 kindly set the zoom to "75%".
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For Mission Trips 2 and 3, it is best to set the zoom to "Full Page".
Do not just look at the photos. Do not just see the main focus in the pictures. Observe the surroundings, the faces, the expressions… They say it all...
If you have received previous emails regarding links to our photos, kindly ignore them, as the link provided above is the finalized one after updating and revising.
We kindly ask you to forward this information to anyone whom you might know to have helped us in any way. The main purposes of setting up these compilations are: to share our deep and touching experience - it is too profound to be contained; to say thank you to all those who offered us all kinds of support - we are so grateful; and to be accountable to those of you who supported us through donations of money and items to be given to the poor - it is only fair after all.
Once again, a heartfelt thanks to all. God Bless You.
The Hawak Kamay Team 2010-2012
Sara, Kristen, Nicky, Jean and Sr Vania
Hawak Kamay Team Youngsters - quote:
“We felt helpless. We could not change anything. We just dived in with our love and presence.
And it changed us. We can never be the same again.”
