OLPS Kid's Carnival Project

On behalf of all SSVP Members and or FiNs (Friends-in-Need), THANK YOU for all your time spent and the energy that you all expanded over the past weekends to push the sale of these tickets for us.

We have not informed our FiNs yet of this Carnival that they will be invited to but I can assure all of you that the children and their parents will have a great time and will be grateful to you guys for this opportunity to enjoy, makan and spend time as a family at OLPS this coming National Day.

ALL tickets will be given to our FiNs & their children. Should I have any excess - these will go to FiNs who are old & parishioners or Catholics or just our older FiNs - in that order.

Again, we are all grateful for this event and we Praise the Lord also for the generosity of our parishioners in making this happen.

God Bless
Stanley Lim President,
SSVP Conference of OLPS

Fund Raising for Batam

We are organising several fund raising projects for St Ignatius Home - Batam for the following purposes :

1) Building of new dormitories (shortfall)

2) Buying of new beds (current ones are lice invested)

3) Landfill (site is next to a river, which floods and damages the buildings)

For those who have not been following up on St Ignatius Home, after two trips to wash, disinfect and paint the dormitories, they are now an improvement over the previously dingy and dilapidated state. However, the overcrowding has put the building of a new dormitory a priority, a challenge we have taken up for the Asrama.

Same goes for the beds and mattresses, we have de-loused and sunned the mattresses, painted the beds, but most of them are badly broken down and the mattresses badly soiled. The skin infections some of the children have are so bad, one of the doctors who went on the "Medical Trip" commented "it's the worst I've seen so far".

Landfill, is self explanatory.

We are fortunate that we have generous organisations who have donated their wares and space for this event, namely,

We have 200 JOOT straw bags, generously donated by JOOT to sell. And Que Pasa has generously allowed us to use their premises on the 18th of August between 6pm to 9pm to sell these bags!

We will be sending out an email blast soon...so stay tuned. But since you already know the date and time, please do come down and support this good cause or just come down and fill up with "spirits". Either way, we'll be glad you came, and we'd bet you'll be too....*wink*

Please click on the above link to get a sneak preview of the bags available for sale on that day. All proceeds from the sale will go to the building of the dormitories, land fill and new bedding. If you are unable to attend this event but would like to buy a bag or make a love offering, please email us.

Cheerio

Gerry

P.S. Que Pasa is located at No 7 Emerald Hill

Update : Tickets for SVDP & Bethany children for Kids Carnival on Aug 9 -

To date we manage to purchase 105 booklets for the of SVDP and Bethany. We are in the midst of making a decision as to how to allocate these booklets. Thank you to all of you for assistance and we will keep you updated on this shortly.

Tickets for SVDP & Bethany children for Kids Carnival on Aug 9 -

Dear Brothers and Sisters

You may already know that OLPS is organizing its 2nd Kids Carnival on Aug 9 on the Church grounds.

The kids and youths had a great time last year, especially at the games stalls, and so did some of the adults.

As the Church will be selling the tickets to the Carnival next week, we are also reaching out to you to give your support to this event. Not just in the invitation to come with your family but also to think about making a love offering to pool our resources to purchase tickets for the kids under the care of St Vincent de Paul and Bethany at OLPS. The tickets to be sold are $10 per booklet but if 10 of us give $2 each, at least two children can come to the Carnival, have a good time and meet friends on that day. And if we extend this outreach to the rest of the Parish, we can begin to count how many children can benefit from this little act of kindness.

However, to make this happen, we need to spread the word around and to set up a collection point for the love offering to come in. The most appropriate time will be during the Mass times in the coming two Sundays of 22 and 29 July. We can call this Project “Buy a Carnival ticket for SVDP & Bethany”

If you are able to help set up the collection point for the love offering either by preparing the posters or just being there to receive the offerings, pse let us know by return email or SMS to 98635329 and we will contact you.

If you want to purchase the Carnival Tickets for yourself and family or make a love offering to the Project, you may also let us know by return email or SMS to 98635329 and we will let you know where to collect your tickets or make the offering.

In the meantime, do pass the word around about the Project so that many more who are blessed can come forward to be a blessing to others and be God’s Love in Action!

Mission Outreach@OLPS

NASA and the BIBLE

(got it off an email..ldon't know if it is true...but an interesting read)

Mr. Harold Hill, President of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore, and a consultant in the space programmes, relates the following incident:

One of the most amazing things that God has for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland. They were checking out the positions of the sun, moon and planets out inspace where they would be 100, and 1000 years from now. We have to know this as we do not want a satellite to collide with any of these in its orbits.

We have to lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite and where the planets will be so the whole project will not bog down. Computer measurements and data were run back and forth over thecenturies when suddenly it came to a halt, displaying a red signal, which meant that either there was something wrong with the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards.

They called in the service department to check it out, and the technicians asked what was wrong. The scientists had discovered that somewhere in space in elapsed time a day was missing. Nobody seemed able to come up with a solution to the problem. Finally one of the team, a Christian, said: "You know, when I was still in Sunday School, they spoke about the sunstanding still......."

While his colleagues didn't believe him, they did not have an answer either, so they said: "Show us." He got a Bible and opened it at the book of Joshua where they found apretty ridiculous statement for any one with 'common sense'. There they read about the Lord saying to Joshua: "Fear them not, I have delivered them into thy hand; there shall not be a man of them stands beforethee." (Joshua 10:8).

Joshua was concerned because the enemy had surrounded him, and if darkness fell, they would overpower him.So Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still! That's right - "And the sun stood still and the moon stayed, until thepeople had avenged themselves upon their enemies. So the sun stood stillin the midst of heaven and hastened not to go down about a whole day."(Joshua 10:13). The astronauts and scientists said: "There is the missing day!"

They checked the computers going back into the time it was written and found it, but it was not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes - not a whole day. They read the Bible again and there itwas: "about (approximately) a day." These little words in the Bible were important, but they were still in trouble, because another 40 minuteswere still unaccounted for, and this could mean trouble 1000 years from now.

Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied manytimes over in orbits. As the Christian employee thought about it, he remembered somewhere inthe Bible which said the sun went backwards. The scientists told him he was out of his mind, but once again they opened the Book and read thesewords in 2 Kings.

Hezekiah, on his deathbed, was visited by the prophet, Isaiah, who toldhim he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for some sign as proof. Isaiahsaid: "Shall the sun go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?" And Hezekiah answered: "It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; nay, but let the shadow return backwards ten degrees." And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." (2Kings 20:9--11). Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes!

Twenty-three hours and twenty minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in 2 Kings accounted for the missing day in the universe!

ChiangMai Silent Retreat 21st to 25th September

Please let us know if you are interested to go for this retreat. We are in the process of booking for this trip. For more information, please go to the link under EVENTS.

Best regards,
Gerry

Feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel

Dear All

The Sisters of Carmel in Singapore has invited the Mission Outreach Team@OLPS to join them in their celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel on Sunday 15 July 2007 (instead of 16 July) in St Teresa Church. There will only be 2 Masses for this celebration and they are at 2.30 pm (Mandarin) and 6.00 pm (English). Do come if you can make it.


Fyi, Sr Francisca will be discharged from the hospital today and she sends her thanks to all for our prayers for her and also God’s blessings in abundance on us all. Do continue to pray for her as she will continue her Chemotherapy until mid-August.

Carol & Edmund

Update on PC Recycling Project

We are very fortunate to have ready volunteers for this project and a few people have donated some PCs. Unfortunately we are in the midst of finding a suitable "work" area where we can store and repair these PCs. Please stay tuned.

Please pray for Elizabeth's soul

Fr Greg's mother Elizabeth, was called home to the Lord just over a week ago.

There will be a memorial mass this Thursday 12th July at 6:00 pm at OLPS for her. You are all invited to this memorial service. Please do try and make it.

Eternal rest grant upon Elizabeth, O Lord And let perpetual light shine upon her May she rest in peace.

God Bless, Carol

Please pray for Sr Francisca

Dear All

If you recall, Sr Francisca, one of 2 regular contacts between our Mission Outreach Team and the Carmel Sisters, recently went through an operation to remove cancer cells in her lymph nodes and is now undergoing chemotherapy.

She was warded last week due to high fever and low white blood cell count. The doctors are still trying to determine the cause and with 2 more cycles of chemo until mid August, I would like to ask for your prayers for her.

Despite her condition, she has informed me that all of us are always in her heart and prayer. She and Sr Angeline continues to pray for our mission outreach work and have invited us to be united in pray with them through the Angelus Prayer – 6 am, 12 noon and 6 pm.

Edmund

Ps: let me know if you have misplaced your copy of the Angelus.